SEO and Web Content

Introduction

A Link Builder serves as a promoter or marketer for a website. However, this kind of marketing is passive wherein link builders create a network of links all over the internet. They choose the webpages to plant their links in based on Page Rank, traffic, content relevancy and amount and quality of links on that page. This network will serve as points from which web users will come from to land on the webpages the link builders are promoting.

Link builders work in tandem with content writers and webmasters. Link builders also develop their links until they raise their value and popularity to generate traffic to their websites.

Skills To Develop:

• Beginner HTML to format text (e.g. bold, italics, line breaks, H1, H2, H3, H4) and to create optimized links (e.g. anchor text, title tag, functional URL)
• Beginner Writing Skills to create short posts and to communicate well in forums and blog comments
• Average to Fast Typing Speed

Tasks Required:

• URL Submission
• Article Submission
• Forum Posting
• Blogging
• Keyword Research
• Basic Data Entry

Basic Know How:

• Search Engine Optimization Concepts
• Social Media Optimization Concepts
• Optimization Strategy Planning

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this training, the trainee will know how to:

• understand the basic concepts of Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Internet Marketing, Page Rank, and Alexa Rank, plus the terms spiders, crawlers, indexing, and spam
• familiarize himself or herself with how crawler-based search engines work
• understand the Google Webmaster Guidelines
• use Content Management Systems such as Blogger or Wordpress for blogging
• do keyword research, use the right keywords for anchor text and link development
• resize, crop and edit images and photos for use in articles, headers, banners, and ads using Open Source image editing software or a free online image editing service
• optimize web pages for search engines by editing META tags and the Page Title
• do off page search engine optimization through URL submissions to web directories and search engines, social bookmarking, and trading content and links with other webmasters
• communicate effectively when posting messages in forums, posting articles in blogs, posting comments and forum responses, and creating marketing copy for search marketing
• promote the site for increased traffic through social media marketing sites such as MyBlogLog, Bumpzee, Squidoo, Hubpages, Facebook, LinkedIn, Entrecard, Twitter, Friendfeed, Feedburner, etc.

Suggested Hours To Be Spent For Each Task

FIRST DAY (8 hours)

• 1 1/2 hours – Researching Basic SEO Concepts and Typing Your Answers
• 2 hours – Reading Assignment: Google Webmaster Guidelines
• 1 1/2 hours – Keyword Research and Selection
• 3 hours – Article Writing and Editing

SECOND DAY (8 hours)

• 1 1/2 hours – Creating a blog at Blogger.com and posting your articles there
• 1 1/2 hours – Submitting your Blogger blog to Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and MSN Live Search Webmaster Center, and to Google Analytics for tracking
• 1 1/2 hours – Submitting your blog’s URL to different Internet directories
• 2 hours – Rewriting your articles for article submissions
• 1 1/2 hours – Writing your About The Author description and submitting your articles to different article directories

THIRD DAY (8 hours)

• 45 minutes – Watching videos and reading about nofollow and dofollow links
• 1 1/2 hours – Social bookmarking your blog’s URL
• 1 hour – Finding and commenting on blogs
• 1 hour and 15 minutes – Finding, signing up and editing your forum signature
• 1 hour – Posting in forums
• 2 1/2 hours – Creating a Squidoo lens

FOURTH DAY (8 hours)

• 1 hour – Optimizing your Squidoo lens by asking your Squidoo friends to Rate It, Favorite it or add to their Lensroll. Then social bookmarking your Squidoo lens.
• 2 1/2 hours Creating a Hubpages hub.
• 1 hour – Optimizing your Hubpages hub by asking your Squidoo friends to Rate It. Social bookmarking your Hubpages hub.
• 1 1/2 hours – Adding your blog, Squidoo and Hubpage to MyBlogLog and Bumpzee. Joining Entrecard for traffic generation.
• 2 hours – Joining Facebook and Linkedin and creating your profile pages.
• Optional (If there is time): Learning about microblogging at Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, and Jaiku. Learning about aggregation at SecondBrain and Friendfeed. Learning about creating feeds at Feedburner.

Learning Outline

I. Introduction to SEO Concepts

This is the theory part of learning optimization concepts and techniques. Understanding them will help you in learning why we need to optimize, how to optimize and what the limits are in optimization.

1. Research on the following terms and discuss the similarities or differences of each with the rest:

a. Search Engine Marketing
b. Search Engine Optimization
c. Social Media Marketing
d. Internet Marketing

Explain which concept has a larger scope and which ones have a smaller scope.

2. Research on the following terms and discuss the similarities or differences of each with the other:

a. Page Rank
b. Alexa Rank

Explain what these terms measure and how were they measured.

3. Explain briefly how crawler-based search engines work starting from when spiders go out and crawl the web and ends when the user types a search query and receives the results ranked according to the search engine’s algorithm.

Write your work in an OpenOffice Writer document. Save it as an ODT file and use your name as the filename. Please save it under your personal folder with your name as foldername.

Reading Assignment:

Read the following manual for understanding the Google Webmaster Guidelines: http://www.feedthebot.com/

The Webmaster Guidelines from Google are a set of rules officially adhered to by the search engines when identifying a good website from a bad one. It includes instructions on what kind of content should be placed on a page and what the prohibited ways are in placing keywords, images and other types of content. Here are the original pages on Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

II. Keyword Research: How to Choose the Words to Target for Optimization

Keywords are the most important elements in any search engine optimization strategy. To make sure your website comes up high in the rankings of search engine results, select those keywords that are searched often by more people but are used and optimized for by the least number of webpages.

Step 1: Go to http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/ and observe the page. This is the Keyword Suggestion Tool offered by Aaron Wall (owner of SEObook.com) for free online. This tool is chosen over the other tools because of its Export to CSV feature which makes your data gathering task easier.

Step 2: Inside the long text field in the middle of the page, type the general term you want to search keywords for. Choose a word or phrase which refers to your area of interest such as sports cars, flower arrangements, love quotes, etc. Think creatively of what interests you most and what topic you know a lot about. Then click on the SUBMIT button.

Step 3: When the page has finished loading and your keyword results are all there, scroll down and click on the Export to CSV link on the upper left hand corner. This will open a pop up window which will ask you whether to save it as a CSV file and to which directory to save it, or to just open the file using a specific program in your PC. Please choose to save it as a CSV file and save it under your folder.

Open the CSV file using OpenOffice Calc and edit the columns and rows of data based on the following criteria:

1. delete all the columns except for Column A (the list of keywords) and the column for Overall Daily Estimate (ODE). ODE refers to the approximate number of searches done across all three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN.
2. delete the rows of keyword data that has the following characteristics:
   • keyphrases with more than three whole words in them (a, an, the, and, it, or are not considered whole words)
   • keyterms with specific names of places (countries, provinces or states), people, or companies
   • keywords with foreign terms in them
   • keywords with numbers or dates
   • keywords with wrong spellings
3. Next, you must add an additional column of data next to the ODE column. These data must be the numbers of competing pages for each keyphrase or keyterm listed. To find the numbers, use the Google search operator allintitle: to find the number of webpages using the keywords in the Page Title.
   • Type the search operator allintitle: followed by the keyword listed on each row. Every time you search for the keyword using the search operator allintitle: a number of search results will appear.
   • Look for the total number listed on the upper right hand corner.
4. Input the number for each keyword. You have to create a new column (name this as Number of Competitors) beside the ODE column.

How To Use The SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool

When you have finished gathering all necessary data, it’s time for you to analyze and select the best three keywords to use for your next task. Follow the following steps:

1. Highlight all of your data on your spreadsheet making sure the darkened fields cover everything from the first cell on the upper left corner to the lower right hand corner cell.
2. Sort your data based on the figures in the ODE column in a Descending order. In your OpenOffice Calc menu on top select the Data dropdown menu and then choose Sort. Then specify the ODE column as basis for sorting and then select Descending as the order for sorting data.
3. Highlight the rows found on top. Select only the ones with more than 20 searches (or more than a 100, depending on your chosen benchmark). Use the Fill Color to mark these rows with your choice of color.
4. Sort your data based on the figures in the Number of Competitors column in an Ascending order. In your OpenOffice Calc menu on top select the Data dropdown menu and then choose Sort. Then specify the Number of Competitors column as basis for sorting and then select Ascending as the order for sorting data.
5. Notice that your marked rows have changed order now. The data have been arranged from the least number of competing pages. Select the marked keywords that are found to have the lesser number of pages competing for them. Only choose the top three keyterms. Please copy and list them below the table.

Save your file with the extension ODS under your folder and save it using your name as filename. For example, YourFirstName.ods.

III. Blogging: Introduction to Blogger.com

Blogger is owned by Google and has more flexible and user friendly features than Wordpress.com blogs. Blogger allows its users to edit their templates and insert 3rd party codes into their blogs. They also make use of widgets for easier placement of codes, text, images or videos into the blog page.

Step 1: Make sure you have a Gmail account before signing up at Blogger. Your Gmail username and password will serve as your Google Account login details. Sign up for Gmail at https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

Step 2: Go to www.blogger.com and login using your Google account username and password.

Step 3: Follow the instructions for creating your blog. You can use any name you want in your blog’s URL and title. The blog title serves as an identifier of what kind of blog it will be so think creatively in naming your blog. Just imagine you are naming your own child. :)

(Top) First Step in Creating Your Blogger blog; (Bottom) Second Step in Creating your Blogger blog

Step 4: Write three short blog posts using each of the keywords you have selected in the previous task. The keywords should be ideally placed in the title of the post, inside the first paragraph and inside the last paragraph. One article or blog post for each keyword.

Blogging Explained in Plain English

Next: How To Optimize Your Blog