by Bruce Clay
Contents at a Glance
Book I: How Search Engines Work
Putting Search Engines in Context
Meeting the Search Engines
Recognizing and Reading Search Results
Getting Your Site to Appear in the Right Results
Knowing What Drives Search Results
Spam Issues: When Search Engines Get Fooled
Book II: Keyword Strategy
Employing Keyword Research Techniques and Tools
Selecting Keywords
Exploiting Pay Per Click Lessons Learned
Assigning Keywords to Pages
Adding and Maintaining Keywords
Book III: Competitive Positioning
Identifying Your Competitors
Competitive Research Techniques and Tools
Applying Collected Data
Book IV: SEO Web Design
The Basics of SEO Web Design
Building an SEO‐Friendly Site
Building a Mobile‐Friendly Site
Making Your Page Search Engine Compatible
Perfecting Navigation and Linking Techniques
Book V: Creating Content
Selecting a Style for Your Audience
Establishing Content Depth and Page Length
Adding Keyword‐Specific Content
Adapting Your Content for Local Search
Dealing with Duplicate Content
Crediting Your Content
Using SEO to Build Your Brand
Book VI: Linking
Employing Linking Strategies
Structuring Internal Links
Obtaining Links
Vetting Inbound Links
Connecting with Social Networks
Book VII: Optimizing the Foundations
Server Issues: Why Your Server Matters
Domain Names: What Your URL Says about You
Using Redirects for SEO
Implementing 301 Redirects
Watching Your Backend: Content Management System Troubles
Solving SEO Roadblocks
Book VIII: Analyzing Results
Employing Site Analytics
Tracking Behavior with Web Analytics
Mastering SEO Tools and Reports
Book IX: International SEO
Discovering International Search Engines
Tailoring Your Marketing Message for Asia
Staking a Claim in Europe
Getting Started in Latin America
Appendix: The Value of Training
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Book Details
Price
|
4.00 |
|---|---|
Pages
| 795 p |
File Size
|
111,861 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN
| 978-1-118-92175-3 978‐1‐118‐92176‐0 (ebk) 978‐1‐118‐92177‐7 (ePDF) |
Copyright©
| 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc |
Introduction
Internet marketing is a dynamic marketing channel because of its accuracy
and ease in tracking traffic. It also generates new opportunities for
communication and marketing at breakneck speeds.
In the early days of the Internet, search engines evolved to bring the web
to users who were looking for sites, products, and like‐minded users. These
days, savvy marketers know that showing up on search engine results pages
is a fruitful way to reach potential new customers. But landing your business’s
website in that precious spot high on the results pages is far from
guaranteed. Search engine optimization (SEO) grew out of the need to persuade
search engines that your site offers the best content for a particular topic.
Search engine optimization isn’t a difficult discipline, but it is complex
because of its many different parts that you need to tweak and adjust so that
they work in harmony. And as far as marketing disciplines go, SEO is a wildly
moving target. This latter quality makes a book on search engine optimization
a challenging undertaking, often requiring a focus on broad concepts
rather than specifics. Many of those specifics change or even fade away so
often that they can need to be replaced or updated a hundred times just
while this book is being updated for the newest edition.
To keep pace with the unavoidably fluctuating nature of SEO recommendations
and search engine guidelines, your business needs to avoid chasing
search engine algorithms. Instead, your goal should be simply to present
your pages as the most relevant for a given search query. Resist the urge
to assume that one aspect of search engine optimization is more important
than another. Keep in mind that to succeed, all the various aspects of your
SEO endeavors need to work together.
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................. 1
About This Book...............................................................................................1
Foolish Assumptions........................................................................................2
Icons Used in This Book..................................................................................3
Beyond the Book..............................................................................................3
Where to Go from Here....................................................................................4
Book I: How Search Engines Work.................................. 5
Chapter 1: Putting Search Engines in Context . 7
Identifying Search Engine Users.....................................................................8
Figuring out how much people spend..................................................8
Knowing your demographics................................................................9
Figuring Out Why People Use Search Engines............................................11
Research................................................................................................11
Shopping................................................................................................12
Entertainment........................................................................................13
Discovering the Necessary Elements for Getting High
Keyword Rankings......................................................................................14
The advantage of an SEO‐compliant site...........................................14
Defining a clear subject theme............................................................16
Focusing on consistency......................................................................16
Building for the long term....................................................................17
Understanding the Search Engines: They’re a Community.......................17
Looking at search results: Apples and oranges................................20
How do they get all that data?............................................................20
Chapter 2: Meeting the Search Engines 23
Finding the Common Threads among the Engines....................................23
Getting to Know the Major Engines..............................................................25
Organic versus paid results.................................................................25
Yahoo.....................................................................................................27
Google....................................................................................................27
Bing.........................................................................................................29
Checking Out the Rest of the Field: AOL and Ask.com..............................30
AOL.........................................................................................................30
Ask.com..................................................................................................30
Finding Your Niche: Vertical Engines..........................................................31
Industry‐specific...................................................................................31
Local.......................................................................................................31
File type‐specific...................................................................................32
Discovering Internal Site Search...................................................................33
Understanding Metasearch Engines............................................................33
Chapter 3: Recognizing and Reading Search Results 37
Reading the Search Engine Results Page.....................................................37
Understanding How People Look at Search Results..................................40
Identifying Mobile Users’ Search Patterns..................................................43
Mobile SERP features...........................................................................43
Mobile’s impact on ranking.................................................................44
Discovering the Features of a Search Results Page...................................45
Blended results.....................................................................................45
Knowledge Graph.................................................................................46
Hummingbird and the semantic search revolution.........................48
Chapter 4: Getting Your Site to Appear in the Right Results . 51
Seeking Traffic, Not Ranking.........................................................................51
Avoiding Spam................................................................................................52
Understanding Personalized Search’s Impact on Ranking........................53
Personalizing results by location.......................................................54
Personalizing results by web history.................................................54
Personalizing results by demographics.............................................54
Personalizing results based on Google products.............................55
Opting out of personalized results.....................................................55
Using News, Images, Books, and Other Search Verticals to Rank............56
Video......................................................................................................56
Images....................................................................................................58
News.......................................................................................................58
Shopping................................................................................................59
Books......................................................................................................60
Apps........................................................................................................61
Maps.......................................................................................................62
Showing Up in Local Search Results............................................................62
Getting into Google My Business........................................................63
Getting into Yahoo Local.....................................................................64
Getting into Bing Places.......................................................................66
Using other resources to aid local ranking.......................................66
Making the Most of Paid Search Results.....................................................68
Google AdWords...................................................................................68
Yahoo.....................................................................................................70
Bing.........................................................................................................70
Chapter 5: Knowing What Drives Search Results . 73
Using Advanced Search Operators..............................................................74
Combining operators for turbo‐powered searching........................76
Searching for images............................................................................77
Searching for videos.............................................................................78
Searching for news...............................................................................78
Searching with maps............................................................................78
Understanding Long‐Tail Queries.................................................................79
Using Predictive Search as a Research Assistant.......................................80
Chapter 6: Spam Issues: When Search Engines Get Fooled . 83
Understanding What Spam Is........................................................................83
Discovering the Types of Spam....................................................................84
Hidden text/links...................................................................................85
Doorway pages......................................................................................86
Deceptive redirection...........................................................................86
Cloaking..................................................................................................87
Unrelated keywords.............................................................................88
Keyword stuffing...................................................................................88
Link farms..............................................................................................88
Reporting Spam..............................................................................................89
Google....................................................................................................89
Bing.........................................................................................................89
Avoiding Being Evil: Ethical Search Marketing...........................................91
Search engine penalties.......................................................................92
Realizing That There Are No Promises or Guarantees..............................93
Following the SEO Code of Ethics.................................................................94
Book II: Keyword Strategy........................................... 97
Chapter 1: Employing Keyword Research Techniques and Tools 99
Discovering Your Site Theme.....................................................................100
Brainstorming for keywords..............................................................101
Building a subject outline..................................................................101
Choosing theme‐related keywords...................................................103
Doing Your Industry and Competitor Research.......................................103
Researching Client Niche Keywords..........................................................104
Checking Out Seasonal Keyword Trends..................................................105
Evaluating Keyword Research....................................................................106
Chapter 2: Selecting Keywords 109
Selecting the Proper Keyword Phrases.....................................................109
Reinforcing versus Diluting Your Theme..................................................111
Picking Keywords Based on Subject Categories......................................116
High‐traffic keywords.........................................................................116
High‐conversion keywords................................................................118
Understanding Keyword‐Based Search versus Semantic Search...........119
How to optimize with keywords in light of semantic search........120
Chapter 3: Exploiting Pay Per Click Lessons Learned 121
Analyzing Your Pay Per Click Campaigns for Clues about Your Site.....122
Brand building.....................................................................................123
Identifying keywords with low click‐through rates........................124
Reducing Costs by Overlapping Pay Per Click with
Natural Keyword Rankings......................................................................126
Chapter 4: Assigning Keywords to Pages . 129
Understanding What a Search Engine Sees as Keywords.......................129
Planning Subject Theme Categories...........................................................130
Choosing Landing Pages for Subject Categories......................................132
Organizing Your Primary and Secondary Subjects..................................133
Understanding Siloing “Under the Hood”..................................................134
Consolidating Themes to Help Search Engines See Your Relevance.....135
Chapter 5: Adding and Maintaining Keywords 139
Understanding Keyword Frequency and Distribution.............................140
Adjusting Keywords.....................................................................................143
Updating Keywords......................................................................................143
Using Tools to Aid Keyword Placement....................................................144
Book III: Competitive Positioning................................ 149
Chapter 1: Identifying Your Competitors . 151
Getting to Know the Competition...............................................................151
Figuring Out the Real Competition.............................................................153
Knowing Thyself: Recognizing Your Business Advantages.....................155
Looking at Conversion as a Competitive Measure...................................156
Recognizing the Difference between Traffic and Conversion.................157
Determining True Competitors by Their Measures.................................159
Sweating the Small Stuff...............................................................................160
Chapter 2: Competitive Research Techniques and Tools 161
Realizing That High Rankings Are Achievable..........................................161
Getting All the Facts on Your Competitors...............................................162
Calculating the Requirements for Rankings..............................................163
Grasping the tools for competitive research:
The Single Page Analyzer...............................................................164
Discovering more tools for competitive research..........................168
Mining the source code......................................................................168
Seeing why server setup makes a difference..................................170
Tracking down competitor links.......................................................174
Sizing up your opponent....................................................................175
Comparing your content....................................................................177
Penetrating the Veil of Search Engine Secrecy.........................................177
Diving into SERP Research..........................................................................178
Chapter 3: Applying Collected Data . 181
Sizing Up Your Page Construction.............................................................182
Landing page construction................................................................182
Content.................................................................................................186
Engagement Objects...........................................................................187
Learning from Your Competitors’ Links....................................................188
Taking Cues from Your Competitors’ Content Structure........................190
Book IV: SEO Web Design.......................................... 195
Chapter 1: The Basics of SEO Web Design . 197
Deciding on the Type of Content for Your Site.........................................198
Making a User‐Focused Website.................................................................199
Choosing Keywords.....................................................................................200
Running a ranking monitor to discover
what’s already working..................................................................200
Matching Meta tags and keywords to page content......................203
Using Keywords in the Heading Tags........................................................204
Keeping the Code Clean...............................................................................206
Organizing Your Assets...............................................................................208
Naming Your Files........................................................................................209
Keeping Design Simple.................................................................................211
Making a Site Dynamic.................................................................................213
Making Your Site Mobile Friendly..............................................................214
Developing a Design Procedure..................................................................215
Chapter 2: Building an SEO‐Friendly Site . 217
Preplanning and Organizing Your Site.......................................................217
Designing Spider‐Friendly Code..................................................................218
Creating a Theme and Style........................................................................219
Writing Rich Text Content...........................................................................221
Planning Your Navigation Elements...........................................................222
Top navigation....................................................................................223
Footer navigation................................................................................224
Side navigation....................................................................................225
Implementing a Site Search.........................................................................226
Incorporating Engagement Objects into Your Site...................................229
Video....................................................................................................230
Audio....................................................................................................231
Allowing for Expansion................................................................................232
Developing an Update Procedure...............................................................233
Balancing Usability and Conversion..........................................................234
Usability and SEO working together.................................................234
Creating pages that convert..............................................................237
Creating a strong call to action.........................................................239
Chapter 3: Building a Mobile‐Friendly Site 241
Choosing the Right Mobile Approach........................................................242
Option 1: Responsive design.............................................................242
When to use responsive design........................................................243
Option 2: Dynamic serving................................................................244
When to use dynamic serving...........................................................245
Option 3: Building a separate mobile site........................................246
When to build a separate mobile site..............................................247
A note about mobile apps..................................................................247
Designing for a Mobile User........................................................................247
Prioritizing mobile content creation................................................248
Designing mobile‐friendly navigation...............................................253
Exploring mobile navigation styles..................................................258
Optimizing forms................................................................................259
Making Mobile a Part of Your SEO Strategy..............................................265
Comparing mobile results to desktop results.................................266
Optimizing to rank in mobile search results...................................266
Is mobile a ranking factor?................................................................270
Testing Mobile Friendliness........................................................................271
Chapter 4: Making Your Page Search Engine Compatible 275
Optimizing HTML Constructs for Search Engines....................................276
The Head section................................................................................276
The Body section................................................................................281
Enriching Your Site with Rich Snippets.....................................................289
Marking up content for rich snippets..............................................290
Understanding how rich snippets affect rankings..........................294
Using Clean Code..........................................................................................295
Making Your Site W3C‐Compliant...............................................................296
Externalizing the Code.................................................................................300
Choosing the Right Navigation...................................................................301
Image maps..........................................................................................301
Flash.....................................................................................................302
JavaScript.............................................................................................302
Text‐based navigation........................................................................302
A word about using frames................................................................302
Chapter 5: Perfecting Navigation and Linking Techniques . 305
Formulating a Category Structure..............................................................306
Selecting Landing Pages..............................................................................310
Absolute versus Relative Linking...............................................................312
Dealing with Less‐than‐Ideal Types of Navigation....................................313
Images..................................................................................................314
JavaScript.............................................................................................314
Flash.....................................................................................................315
Checking to see what Google sees....................................................316
Naming Links.................................................................................................318
Book V: Creating Content........................................... 319
Chapter 1: Selecting a Style for Your Audience 321
Knowing Your Demographic.......................................................................322
Finding out customer goals...............................................................322
Looking at current customer data....................................................323
Researching to find out more............................................................325
Interviewing customers.....................................................................325
Using server logs and analytics........................................................327
Creating a Dynamic Tone............................................................................328
Choosing a Content Style.............................................................................329
Developing a Blog.........................................................................................330
Using Personas to Define Your Audience..................................................331
Creating personas...............................................................................332
Using personas....................................................................................333
Chapter 2: Establishing Content Depth and Page Length . 337
Building Enough Content to Rank Well......................................................338
Developing Ideas for Content......................................................................340
Brainstorming to get ideas................................................................340
Looking at competitors for content ideas.......................................341
Utilizing your offline materials..........................................................342
Listening to customers.......................................................................343
Using Various Types of Content.................................................................343
Optimizing Images........................................................................................343
Naming images....................................................................................344
Handling image size............................................................................345
Mixing in Video.............................................................................................347
Placing videos where they count most............................................348
Saving videos, plus a word about formats......................................348
Sizing videos appropriately for your audience...............................350
Choosing the best video quality.......................................................350
Choosing the right video length.......................................................350
Posting your videos to increase traffic............................................351
Making the Text Readable...........................................................................352
Allowing User Input......................................................................................356
Creating User Engagement..........................................................................358
Writing a Call to Action................................................................................359
Chapter 3: Adding Keyword‐Specific Content . 361
Creating Your Keyword List........................................................................361
Developing Content Using Your Keywords...............................................363
Beginning to write...............................................................................364
Keeping it relevant..............................................................................365
Including clarifying words.................................................................365
Including synonyms to widen your appeal......................................366
Dealing with stop words....................................................................367
Freshness of the content...................................................................367
Deepening your content.....................................................................368
Dynamically adding content to a page.............................................368
Optimizing the Content................................................................................369
Setting up the HTML...........................................................................369
Digging deeper by running Single Page Analyzer...........................370
Finding Tools for Keyword Integration......................................................373
Competitive Analysis Tools.........................................................................374
Chapter 4: Adapting Your Content for Local Search . 377
Taking Advantage of Local Search.............................................................377
Understanding local search results..................................................378
Introducing local SEO.........................................................................381
Optimizing Content for Local Searches.....................................................382
Creating region‐specific content.......................................................383
Chapter 5: Dealing with Duplicate Content 387
Sources of Duplicate Content and How to Resolve Them.......................388
Multiple URLs with the same content..............................................389
Finding out how many duplicates the search engine
thinks you have...............................................................................389
Avoiding duplicate content on your own site.................................390
Avoiding duplications between your different domains...............393
Printer‐friendly pages.........................................................................393
Dynamic pages with session IDs.......................................................395
Content syndication...........................................................................396
Localization.........................................................................................398
Mirrors.................................................................................................399
CMS duplication..................................................................................399
Archives...............................................................................................400
Duplication by Outsiders.............................................................................401
Scrapers...............................................................................................402
Clueless newbies.................................................................................403
Stolen content.....................................................................................403
Chapter 6: Crediting Your Content 405
Factoring in Intellectual Property Considerations...................................405
What to do when your content is stolen.........................................406
Filing for copyright.............................................................................408
Using content from other sites.........................................................409
Crediting original authors..................................................................410
Sourcing and protecting images.......................................................411
Chapter 7: Using SEO to Build Your Brand . 417
Selecting Keywords for Branding Purposes..............................................418
How to Build Your Brand through Search.................................................418
Writing press releases........................................................................420
Optimizing for blended search.........................................................421
Using Engagement Objects to Promote Your Brand................................423
Building a Community..................................................................................424
Being who you are online..................................................................425
Blogging to build community............................................................426
Using other social media to build community................................428
Connecting to your audience with social networking....................429
Spreading the word with social share buttons...............................432
Book VI: Linking....................................................... 435
Chapter 1: Employing Linking Strategies 437
Theming Your Site by Subject.....................................................................437
Web analytics evaluation...................................................................441
PPC programs......................................................................................441
Tracked keyword phrases.................................................................441
Keyword research...............................................................................442
Implementing Clear Subject Themes.........................................................443
Siloing.............................................................................................................445
Doing physical siloing........................................................................446
Doing virtual siloing...........................................................................448
Making the Most of Outbound Links..........................................................450
Obtaining Inbound Links.............................................................................451
Link magnets.......................................................................................451
Link bait...............................................................................................451
Link buying..........................................................................................452
Chapter 2: Structuring Internal Links . 453
Subject Theming Structure..........................................................................453
Optimizing Link Equity................................................................................455
Creating and Maintaining Silos...................................................................456
Building a Silo: An Illustrated Guide...........................................................459
Maintaining Your Silos.................................................................................462
Including Traditional Sitemaps...................................................................463
Using an XML Sitemap.................................................................................466
Chapter 3: Obtaining Links . 469
Understanding the Benefits and Risks of Link Building...........................469
Why links are important....................................................................469
Why links are dangerous...................................................................470
Identifying Quality Links..............................................................................471
Complementary subject relevance...................................................471
Expert relevance reinforcement.......................................................473
Quality testimonial links....................................................................473
Attracting Links............................................................................................474
Generating link magnets....................................................................478
Spreading the word through social media and press releases.....480
Guest posting......................................................................................482
Fostering relationships......................................................................483
Soliciting paid links for advertising..................................................487
How Not to Obtain Links.............................................................................488
Chapter 4: Vetting Inbound Links 491
Identifying Inbound Links............................................................................491
Avoiding Poor‐Quality Links.......................................................................492
Reciprocal links...................................................................................492
Incestuous links..................................................................................493
Link farms............................................................................................493
Web rings.............................................................................................494
Bad neighborhoods............................................................................495
Dealing with Search Engine Spam..............................................................495
Identifying inbound link spam...........................................................496
Removing unwanted links..................................................................499
Chapter 5: Connecting with Social Networks . 507
Making Use of Blogs.....................................................................................507
Discovering Social News Sites....................................................................509
Promoting Media on Social Networking Sites...........................................511
Optimizing Social Media..............................................................................513
Social Signals as Search‐Ranking Factors..................................................515
Building Community.....................................................................................516
Incorporating Interactivity..........................................................................519
Book VII: Optimizing the Foundations......................... 523
Chapter 1: Server Issues: Why Your Server Matters 525
Meeting the Servers......................................................................................526
Using the Apache server....................................................................526
Using the Microsoft IIS server...........................................................526
Using other server options................................................................527
Making Sure That Your Server Is Healthy, Happy, and Fast...................527
Running a Check Server tool.............................................................528
Indulging the need for speed.............................................................531
Testing your page speed with Google..............................................532
Excluding Pages and Sites from the Search Engines................................533
Using a robots text file.......................................................................533
Using Meta robots tags......................................................................536
Being wise to different search engine robots..................................537
Creating Custom 404 Error Pages...............................................................539
Designing a 404 Error page................................................................539
Customizing your 404 Error page for your server..........................541
Monitoring your 404 Error logs to spot problems..........................542
Fixing Dirty IPs and Other “Bad Neighborhood” Issues..........................543
Serving Your Site to Different Devices.......................................................546
Server setup for a responsive website.............................................546
Server setup for a dynamic website.................................................547
Server setup for a separate mobile site...........................................547
Chapter 2: Domain Names: What Your URL Says about You . 549
Selecting Your Domain Name......................................................................549
Registering Your Domain Name..................................................................552
Covering All Your Bases..............................................................................553
Country‐code TLDs.............................................................................553
Generic TLDs.......................................................................................555
Vanity domains...................................................................................557
Misspellings.........................................................................................557
Pointing Multiple Domains to a Single Site Correctly..............................559
Choosing the Right Hosting Provider........................................................560
Understanding Subdomains........................................................................563
Why people set up subdomains........................................................563
How search engines view subdomains............................................564
Chapter 3: Using Redirects for SEO 567
Discovering the Types of Redirects...........................................................567
301 (permanent) Redirects................................................................568
302 (temporary) Redirects................................................................569
Meta refreshes.....................................................................................570
JavaScript redirects............................................................................571
Reconciling Your www and Non‐www URLs.............................................572
Chapter 4: Implementing 301 Redirects . 575
Getting the Details on How 301 Redirects Work.......................................575
Implementing a 301 Redirect in Apache .htaccess Files..........................576
To add a 301 Redirect to a specific page in Apache.......................578
To 301 Redirect an entire domain in Apache..................................578
Implementing a 301 Redirect on an NGINX Server...................................579
Implementing a 301 Redirect on a Microsoft IIS Server...........................579
To 301 Redirect pages in IIS 5.0 and 6.0...........................................579
To 301 Redirect an entire domain in IIS 5.0 and 6.0.......................581
To implement a 301 Redirect in IIS 7.0 and higher.........................581
To implement a 301 Redirect with ISAPI_Rewrite on an
IIS server...........................................................................................582
To 301 Redirect an old page to a new page in ISAPI_Rewrite.......583
To 301 Redirect a non‐www domain to the
www domain in ISAPI_Rewrite......................................................583
Using Alternate Ways to Redirect a Page..................................................585
Implementing a 301 Redirect with header inserts..........................585
Implementing a 301 Redirect on a WordPress site.........................589
Chapter 5: Watching Your Backend: Content
Management System Troubles . 591
Avoiding SEO Problems Caused by Content Management Systems......592
Understanding why dynamically generated
pages can be friend or foe..............................................................592
Dealing with dynamic URLs and session IDs...................................593
Choosing the Right Content Management System...................................599
Customizing Your CMS for SEO..................................................................601
Optimizing Your Hosted E‐Commerce Site................................................603
Avoiding Problems with JavaScript Frameworks.....................................606
Chapter 6: Solving SEO Roadblocks 609
Inviting Spiders to Your Site.......................................................................610
Avoiding 302 Hijacks....................................................................................614
Handling Secure Server Problems..............................................................616
Book VIII: Analyzing Results...................................... 619
Chapter 1: Employing Site Analytics 621
Discovering Web Analytics Basics.............................................................621
Web metrics.........................................................................................622
Web analytics......................................................................................623
Measuring Your Success..............................................................................624
Identifying what you’re tracking.......................................................625
Choosing key performance indicators.............................................627
Measuring reach.................................................................................628
Acquisition...........................................................................................629
Response metrics...............................................................................630
Conversions.........................................................................................630
Retention..............................................................................................631
Examining Analytics Packages....................................................................632
Google..................................................................................................633
Log Files Analysis.........................................................................................635
Log‐file analysis tools.........................................................................638
Check out traffic numbers.................................................................639
Chapter 2: Tracking Behavior with Web Analytics 641
Measuring Website Usability......................................................................641
Personas...............................................................................................642
A/B testing...........................................................................................642
Multivariate testing............................................................................644
Cookies.................................................................................................644
Session IDs...........................................................................................646
Tracking Conversions..................................................................................646
Measuring marketing campaign effectiveness................................647
Building conversion funnels..............................................................649
Preventing conversion funnel drop‐off............................................650
Analyzing your conversion funnel....................................................650
Making site improvements................................................................651
Assigning web page objectives.........................................................652
Tracking the Success of Your SEO Project................................................652
Analyzing Rankings......................................................................................653
Chapter 3: Mastering SEO Tools and Reports 655
Getting Started with Conversion Testing..................................................655
Getting ready to run a conversion test............................................657
Testing with Content Experiments...................................................661
Viewing your results...........................................................................665
Discovering Page and Site Analysis Tools.................................................667
Viewing performance of paid search campaigns............................667
Measuring traffic and conversion from organic search.................668
Defining goals in Google Analytics...................................................669
Viewing traffic from social networks................................................670
Seeing Visitor Paths through the Site........................................................670
Understanding Abandonment Rates..........................................................672
Book IX: International SEO......................................... 675
Chapter 1: Discovering International Search Engines . 677
Targeting International Users.....................................................................677
Domains and geolocating...................................................................681
Site architecture tips..........................................................................682
Identifying Opportunities for Your International Site..............................683
Single sites...........................................................................................683
Multiple sites.......................................................................................684
The blended approach.......................................................................685
Realizing How People Search......................................................................686
Chapter 2: Tailoring Your Marketing Message for Asia 691
Succeeding in Asia........................................................................................691
Assessing your site’s chances...........................................................691
Sizing up the competition and sounding out the market..............692
Determining your plan of attack.......................................................693
Discovering Japan........................................................................................694
Succeeding in China.....................................................................................696
Finding Out about South Korea..................................................................700
Operating in Russia......................................................................................701
Chapter 3: Staking a Claim in Europe 703
Succeeding in the European Union............................................................703
Knowing the Legal Issues in the EU............................................................704
Working within the United Kingdom..........................................................705
Discovering France.......................................................................................707
Operating in Germany..................................................................................710
Understanding the Netherlands.................................................................712
Chapter 4: Getting Started in Latin America . 715
Succeeding in Latin America.......................................................................715
Geotargeting with Google Search Console................................................717
Working in Mexico........................................................................................717
Operating in Brazil........................................................................................719
Discovering Argentina..................................................................................720
Appendix: The Value of Training................................. 721
Index........................................................................ 739
Bookscreen
About This Book
Throughout this book, we reference tools as well as experts (ourselves and
others) in the field. Search engine marketing (SEM), as an industry, is very
active and excels at knowledge sharing. Although we cover the basics here,
we strongly urge you to take advantage of the community that has developed
since search engine marketing began. Truly, without the SEM community,
we couldn’t have written this book.
We hope that you keep this book near at hand, picking it up when you need
to check for answers. For that reason, we attempt to make each minibook
stand on its own. If something falls outside the scope of a particular minibook,
or requires a mention in one but more detail in another, we refer you
to the correct chapter or minibook for more information.
Search engine optimization has grown and changed over the years, along
with the search engines themselves, and it continues to change at such a fast
pace that sometimes the tools and features of the search engines become
outdated even soon after this book’s publication. For example, over the
course of writing this book, Google changed the name of its webmaster tools
platform from Google Webmaster Tools to Google Search Console, and modified
the layout of local search results pages multiple times. This changeability
means that you may have to research the most current tools and features
available to you at at any given moment.
This book uses the following conventions, as follows:
✦✦ Text appears in brackets when it represents a search query that an
Internet user might type into a search engine’s search box, like this:
[when is Mother’s Day].
✦✦ Web addresses and programming code appear in monofont. If you’re
reading a digital version of this book on a device connected to the
Internet, you can click or tap the web address to visit that website,
like this: www.dummies.com.