SEO and WordPress.com

This presentation was originally given at WordCamp Slovakia 2013 in Slovak Technical University on 20 April.

Purpose of this presentation:
– teach you how to set up an online business using WordPress
   - WordPress is just a tool, albeit a very good tool
– when you leave this presentation you should be able to:
   - understand SEO
   - come up with an online strategy
   - choose a domain
   - set up a WordPress site
   - illustrate the site
   - do the onpage SEO required
   - know the essentials of off-page SEO

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What is SEO:
– Search Engine Optimisation
– What is a search engine?
   - there used to be a variety of answers
   - in most of the world there’s just one answer now: Google
   - Russia has Yandex, China has Baidu: we’re not in Russian and we’re not in China
   - we’re working for Google [slides 01-03]

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What does Google want:
– a clear subject for your article
– a clear headline (Google doesn’t get jokes or puns)
– a clear short URL with your keywords (three words or less)
– a metadescription that people want to click on
– something that people like to read
   - short paragraphs
   - clear headers
   - bite size content
   - good writing
– real specialist expertise
   - there’s too many article factories out there already
– when your visitors are satisfied, Google want to send you more visitors
   - nice illustrations make people give your site more of a chance
   - nice design makes people give your site more of a chance
   - you do not want people using the back button: do everything you can to give your content        a chance

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– a short relevant domain name can help: http://slovaklessons.com
– no hyphens
– not too long
– not .info, not .biz
– .com, .net, .org, .de, .sk, .ca, .at, .co.uk
– an active site: post regularly!!!

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Off-Page:
– you want people to share your site: put up sharing buttons
– but just for the services people will really use
– interact with people: depending on your subject
   - twitter (blogosphere)
   - linkedin (business)
   - facebook (consumer)
   - stumbleupon (web surfers)
   - pinterest (visual)
   - Google+ (for sure they are measuring this)
– Google places for business

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– forums:
   - links
   - people
– other weblogs
   - post in the comment sections
– mindset:
   - connect with other people interested in the same things
   - reach influencers: influencers could include people who
      – have huge twitter followings
      – have popular weblogs
      – know a lot of people on facebook
– you only have one chance to make an impression:
   - don’t drag people to a boring site
   - don’t promote a boring article even if you are unlucky enough to have written one

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Social Media:
– fancy word
– thank god: we’ve already covered it
– social media is just connecting with other people
– you do not need fancy courses in social media
– you just need to get out there and meet people online

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What doesn’t work:
– link exchange
   - Google sees it and devalues it
What can work but isn’t worth it:
– buying links
– spam comments (just annoy people)
– any trick, Google will let you do it and then hang you with it later
   - if you know that people who post grafitti shoplift
   - when the police find out who is doing grafitti you just follow them around and arrest them later
   - that’s what Google does

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Tricks which do work:
– properly titled images will bring in lots of image search results
   - Mary Austin Freddie Mercury Uncoy
– blog comments with keywords in the name field
   - shouldn’t work but does
   - blog owners often blocking them now though

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