Learning Search Engine Optimization

Market Research

Do you have what it takes to compete in a market?
Try: using SEO for Firefox and searching on major search engines to get an overview of how competitive a marketplace is.

The first step is to search the major search engines to see what types of websites are ranking for words which you deem to be important. For example, if mostly colleges, media, and government institutions are ranking for your most important terms it may be difficult to rank for those types of queries. If, on the other hand, the market is dominated by fairly average  websites which are not strongly established brands it may be a market worth persuing.


You can extend out the research you get from the search results by using the SEO for Firefox extension with the Firefox browser. This places many marketing data points right in the search results, and thus lets you see things like
- site age
- Google PageRank
- inbound link count
- if any governmental or educational sites link at their site
- if they are listed in major directories
- if bloggers link at their sites

Keyword Research

What keywords are people searching for?
Try: Using the SEO Book Keyword research tool to search for popular and Long Tail keywords related to your industry. This tool cross references Overture, the Google Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, and other popular keyword research tools.

Keyword research tools are better at providing a qualitative measure than a quantitative measure, so don't be surprised if actual traffic volumes vary greatly from the numbers suggested by these tools. When in doubt you can also set up a Google AdWords account to test the potential size of a market.

In addition to looking up search volumes for what keywords you think are important also take the time to ask past customers how they found you, why they chose you, and what issues were important to them in chosing you.

You can also get keyword ideas by doing things like
- checking your web analytics or server logs
- looking at page contents of competing websites
- looking through topical forums and community sites to see what issues people frequently discuss

Site Structure

How should you structure your site?
Try: Before drafting content consider what keywords are your most important and map out how to create pages to fit each important group of keywords within your site theme and navigational structure based on
- market value
- logical breaks in market segmentation
- importance of ranking in building credibility / improving conversion rates

You may want to use an excel spreadsheet or some other program to help you visualize your site structure.

Make sure
- your most important categories or pages are linked to sitewide
- you link to every page on your site from at least one other page on your site
- you use consistant anchor text in your navigation
- you link to other content pages (and expeically to action items) from within the content area of your website

If you are uncertain how deep to make a portion of the site start by creating a few high quality pages on the topic. Based on market feedback create more pages in the sections that are most valuable to your business.

On Page Optimization

How should you structure your on page content?
Try: Using unique descriptive page titles play a crucial role in a successful search engine optimization campaigns. Page titles appear in the search results, and many people link to pages using the page title as their link anchor text.

If possible create hand crafted meta description tags which compliment the page title by reinforcing your offer. If the relevant keywords for a page have multiple formats it may make sense to help focus the meta description on versions you did not use in the page title.

As far as page content goes, make sure you write for humans, but also use heading tags to help break up the content into logical sections which will improve the scanability and help structure the document.

When possible, make sure your page content uses descriptive modifiers as well.

Each page also needs to be sufficiently unique from other pages on your site. Do not let search engines index printer friendly versions of your content, or other pages where content is duplicate or nearly duplicate.

Link Building

How do I build quality links?
Try: In this post Matt Cutts suggested that Google is getting better at understanding link quality. Search engines want to count quality editorial votes as links that help influence their relevancy algorithms.

Here are a few tips for building links
- submit your site to general directories like DMOZ, the Yahoo! Directory, and Business.com
- submit your site to relevant niche directories
- here is more background on directories and SEO
- if you have a local site submit to relevant local sites (like the local chamber of commerce)
- join trade organizations
- get links from industry hub sites
- create content people would want to link at
- here is a list of 101 useful link building strategies
Other link building tips
- try to link to your most relevant page when getting links (don't point all the links at your home page)
- mix your anchor text
- use Yahoo! Site Explorer and other tools to analyze top competing backlinks
- don't be afraid to link out to relevant high quality resources

Brand Building

How does brand relate to SEO?
Try: Brand related search queries tend to be some of the most targeted, best converting, and most valuable keywords. As you gain mindshare people will be more likely to search for your brand or keywords related to your brand.

A high volume of brand related search traffic may also be seen as a sign of quality by major search engines. 

If you build a strong brand when people search for more information about your brand other websites will have good things to say about your brand, thus reinforcing your brand image and improving your lead quality and conversion rates.

Things like advertising and community activity are easy ways to help improve your brand exposure, but obviously branding is a lot more complicated than that. One of my favorite books about branding is Rob Frankel's The Revenge of Brand X.

Viral Marketing

How does viral marketing relate to SEO?
Try: Seth Godin's Purple Cow is a great book about being remarkable. Links are nothing but a remark or citation.

Link building is probably the single hardest and most time consuming part of an effective SEO campaign, largely because it requires influencing other people.

The beautiful thing about viral marketing is that creating one popular compelling idea can lead to thousands and thousands of unrequested links.

In SEO many people create content based around linking opportunities. Many of us refer to this as Link Baiting.

You can learn link baiting tips from
- SEO Book
- Stuntdubl
- Copyblogger
- Wolf Howl

You can search social news or social bookmarking sites like Digg or Del.icio.us to see what stories related to your topic became popular.

You can also hire Chris Angus, Todd Malicoat,  or Brent Csutoras to perform link baiting services.

Measuring Results

How can I tell if my SEO campaign is effective?
Try: The bottom line is what counts. Is your site generating more leads, higher quality leads, or more sales?

Search engines lag market activity though, so it may take a while for them to fully analyze how authoritative your site is after you work to target new markets and build linkage data and brand value.

You can look at your server logs and an analytics program to track traffic trends and what keywords lead to conversion.

Outside of traffic another good sign that you are on the right track is if you see more websites asking questions or talking about you. If you start picking up high quality unrequested links you might be near a Tipping Point to where your marketing really starts to build on itself.

Depending on how competitive your marketplace is it may take anywhere from a few weeks to a couple years to establish a strong market position.

In my SEO tools I also offer Google Gadgets, which make it easy for you to embed keyword, competitive, and link research tools inside any webpage.

Keeping up to date

How do you track the changes in the SEO market?
Try: You can track your ranking changes using this free keyword rank checker. Remember that the perspective of only one site is probably not enough to understand all the changing market dynamics though.

If you want to keep up with how the market is changing consider using any of the following resources
- SEO Conferences
- SEO Blogs
- SEO Forums

We offer niche guides for blog SEO and charity SEO. And if you want an up to date overall SEO training program, consider joining our SEO training program.

Best of luck with your sites!
Aaron Wall