Peter Kent is an e-commerce consultant who specializes in search engine optimization (SEO). A former VP of Web Solutions at a national ISP and VP of Marketing and search engine optimization expert at Indigio, he has been involved in the online world since 1984 and has been writing about the Internet since 1993. Peter is the author of nearly 60 books as well as hundreds of articles.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Part 1: Getting Started with SEO 5

Chapter 1: Surveying the Search Engine Landscape 7

Investigating Search Engines and Directories 8

Search sites, indexes, and engines 9

Search directories 9

Spidered directories 11

Pay-per-click systems 11

Keeping the terms straight 12

Why bother with search engines? 13

Where Do People Search? 14

It’s all the same! 16

Search Engine Magic 16

How do they do it? 17

Stepping into the programmers’ shoes 17

Gathering Your Tools 19

Chapter 2: Search Results, Deconstructed 21

The Big Two: Organic and PPC 22

Looking at Local Results 24

Checking Out Shopping Results 25

Staying Current with News Results 26

Viewing Video and Image Results 27

And Plenty More 28

Getting Friendly with Social Results 29

Collecting Bits n’ Pieces 30

Chapter 3: Your One-Hour, Search Engine–Friendly Website Makeover 33

Is Your Site Indexed? 34

Google 34

Yahoo! and Bing 36

Taking Action If You’re Not Listed 36

No links 37

Unreliable Web Server 38

robots txt is blocking your site 38

robots meta tags are blocking pages 38

Unreadable navigation 39

Dealing with dynamic pages 40

Bad domain name 41

The canonical tag 42

Picking Good Keywords 42

Examining Your Pages 43

Using frames 43

Looking at the TITLE tags 45

Examining the DESCRIPTION tag 46

Giving search engines something to read 47

Getting Your Site Indexed 50

Chapter 4: Beating the Competition: Planning a Powerful Search Engine Strategy 53

Don’t Trust Your Web Designer 54

Understanding the Limitations 55

Eyeing the Competition 56

Getting a “gut feel” for the competition 57

Why is my competitor ranking so high? 59

Going Beyond Getting to #1 60

Highly targeted keyword phrases 60

Understanding the search tail 61

Controlling Search Engine Variables 63

Keywords 63

Content 64

Page optimization 64

Submissions 65

Links 65

Time and the Google sandbox 65

Determining Your Plan of Attack 67

Look Away a Few Minutes 68

Two Things to Remember 69

Chapter 5: Making Your Site Useful and Visible 73

Learning from Amazon 73

Revealing the Secret But Essential Rule of Web Success 75

The evolving, incorrect “secret” 76

Uncovering the real secret 76

Showing a bias for content 77

Making Your Site Work Well 78

Limiting multimedia 79

Using text, not graphics 79

Don’t be cute 80

Making it easy to move around 80

Providing different routes 81

Using long link text 82

Don’t keep restructuring 82

Editing and checking spelling 83

Ugly doesn’t sell 83

Panda — Google Endorses Good Design 86

Keep It Fresh (Perhaps) 88

Part 2: Building Search Engine-Friendly Sites 89

Chapter 6: Picking Powerful Keywords 91

Understanding the Importance of Keywords 92

Thinking Like Your Prey 95

Starting Your Keyword Analysis 96

Identifying the obvious keywords 96

Looking at your website’s analytics 96

Examining competitors’ keyword tags 97

Brainstorming with colleagues 97

Looking closely at your list 97

Using a Keyword Tool 101

Making Sure You Understand Your Tool 104

Working with Your Tool 105

Choosing Your Keywords 106

Cam again? You might be missing the target 107

Ambiguous terms 107

Very broad terms 107

Picking combinations 108

Using Your Keywords 109

Chapter 7: Creating Pages That Search Engines Love 111

Preparing Your Site 112

Finding a hosting company 112

Picking a domain name 112

Site speed 114

Mobile readiness 114

HTTPS 115

Seeing Through a Search Engine’s Eyes 118

Understanding Keyword Concepts 121

Picking one or two phrases per page 121

Checking prominence 122

Watching density 122

Placing keywords throughout your site 123

Creating Your Web Pages 123

Naming files 124

Creating directory structure 125

Viewing TITLE tags 125

Using the DESCRIPTION meta tag 127

Tapping into the KEYWORDS meta tag 130

Using other meta tags 131

Including image ALT text 133

Adding body text 133

Creating headers: CSS versus tags 134

Formatting text 136

Creating links 136

Using other company and product names 137

Creating navigation structures that search engines can read 139

Blocking searchbots 139

Chapter 8: Designing for Speed 143

The Importance of Speed 143

What Is Site Speed? 144

So How Is My Site Doing? 145

Speeding Up Your Site 147

Picking the right host 148

Using HTTP/2 149

Fixing your site 150

Site-speed plug-ins and caching 151

Using a CDN 151

Speeding up mobile pages 152

Chapter 9: Designing for Mobile 153

How Mobile Affects SEO 153

Is Your Site Mobile Friendly? 154

Making Your Site Mobile Friendly 157

Mobile-First Indexing 158

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) 159

Web Light — Google’s Trick for Speeding Up Pages 160

Chapter 10: Using Structured Data Markup 161

Creating Rich Snippets 163

A Special Case: Video and Images 167

Pick Your Data Format 168

Providing Knowledge Panel Information 169

Getting Help 170

Data Highlighter 170

Markup Helper 171

The Structured Data Testing Tool 171

The Structured Data Dashboard 171

CMS plug-ins 172

Chapter 11: Avoiding Things That Search Engines Hate 173

Understanding Content Value and Thin Content 174

Avoiding Image, Video, and Animation Problems 176

Avoiding image problems 176

Keeping content out of video? 177

Flush the Flash animation 178

Links That Aren’t Links 178

Avoiding Complicated URLs 180

Managing Dynamic Web Pages 181

Understanding dynamic-page URLs 182

Fixing your dynamic web page problem 183

Avoiding Session IDs in URLs 184

Foregoing Frames 187

The HTML nitty-gritty of frames 189

Handling iframes 190

Considering JavaScript and AJAX 191

Fixing Bits and Pieces 192

Avoid the urge to copy and paste from MS Word 192

Forwarded pages 192

Special characters 193

Chapter 12: Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap 195

Tricking Search Engines 196

Deciding whether to trick 196

What the Search Engines Want to See 197

Do these tricks work? 198

Concrete Shoes, Cyanide, TNT — An Arsenal of Dirty Deeds 199

Keyword, stacking, stuffing, and spamming 199

Hiding (and shrinking) keywords 200

Big lists of keywords 203

Hiding links 203

Duplicating pages and sites 203

Page Swapping and Page Jacking 204

Doorway and Information Pages 204

Using Redirects and Cloaking 206

Understanding redirects 206

Examining cloaking 207

Structured Markup Strategies 209

Much, Much More 210

Tricks Versus Strategies 210

Link Tricks 211

Paying the Ultimate Penalty 211

Chapter 13: Bulking Up Your Site: Competing with Content 213

Creating Content Three Ways 214

Writing Your Own Stuff 215

Summarizing online articles 216

Reviewing websites and products 216

Convincing Someone Else to Write Content 217

Using OPC (Other People’s Content) 218

Understanding Copyright — It’s Not Yours! 219

Hunting for Other People’s Content 221

Keywords 221

Product information 222

Websites and e-mail newsletters 223

Government sources 224

Content Syndication 225

Traditional syndication services 229

RSS syndication feeds 229

Open content and copyleft 231

Search results pages 232

Press releases 232

Q&A areas 233

Message boards 233

Blogs 234

A Word about Duplicated Content 235

“Content Is King” 236

Chapter 14: Finding Traffic Through Local Search Marketing 239

Why You Shouldn’t Skip This Chapter 240

Understanding Local Search Marketing’s Importance 240

Looking through Local Search 241

How Does Local Search Work? 243

Search terms 243

Partner and localized sites 243

IP numbers 244

Two Ways to Reach People Locally 246

“Localizing” Your Web Pages 247

Keywording the pages 247

Use the Geo meta tags 249

Registering for Local Search 250

Yahoo!’s Listing Confusion 250

Grabbing control of (or adding) your business listing 252

Increasing the odds 255

The Local Directory Listing Services 256

The benefits of business directories 257

Don’t forget local directories 258

The Other Side of Local: Review Sites 259

Removing bad reviews 261

Diluting bad reviews 262

Identifying important review sites 263

Working with the Yellow Pages 263

Part 3: Adding Your Site to the Indexes and Directories 267

Chapter 15: Getting Your Pages into the Search Engines 269

Linking Your Site for Inclusion 270

Submitting to the Major Search Engines 271

Simple Link Submissions to the Major Systems 271

Working with the Webmaster Accounts 272

Submitting an XML Sitemap 273

Submitting URLs 278

Pinging search engines 279

Using If-Modified-Since 280

Using Webmaster Tools, Too 281

Submitting to Secondary Systems 283

Chapter 16: Submitting to the Directories 285

Pitting Search Directories Against Search Engines 285

Why Are Directories So Significant? 288

Submitting to the Search Directories 289

The General Directories 289

Finding Specialized Directories 290

Getting the link 291

Using “Local” Directories 293

Chapter 17: Product Search: Remember the Shopping Directories and Retailers 295

Understanding Where People Search for Products 296

Working with the Product Indexes 298

Google Shopping Ads 300

Connexity: Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber,

Shopzilla, and more 301

Bing Shopping 303

Amazon product ads 303

Shopping com 303

Pricewatch 303

Exploring More Shopping Services 305

The Classified-Ad Sites 305

Working with E-Commerce Marketplaces 306

Working with eBay 307

Working with Amazon 307

Managing Your Data 308

The data you need 309

Formatting guidelines 310

Creating your spreadsheet 311

Getting those product URLs 311

Creating individual sheets 313

Creating and uploading your data files 316

Multichannel, automated data management 317

Part 4: After You’ve Submitted Your Site 319

Chapter 18: Using Link Popularity to Boost Your Position 321

Why Search Engines Like Links 322

Google: All about links 322

Links: The gift that keeps on giving 323

Understanding Page Value and PageRank 324

PageRank — One part of the equation 325

The PageRank algorithm 326

Measuring PageRank 329

Leaking PageRank 331

Pseudo PageRank Alternatives 332

Page Relevance 333

Hubs and Neighborhoods 334

Trust in TrustRank 335

Inserting Keywords into Links 336

The Googlebomb lives 337

PageRank versus Keywords 338

Get a good mix 339

Good Links and Bad 339

Recognizing Links with No Value 340

Identifying links that aren’t links 341

Identifying nofollow links 343

Recalling a Few Basic Rules about Links 344

Chapter 19: Finding Sites to Link to Yours 347

Controlling Your Links 348

Converting good links to bad 348

The perfect link text 348

Doing a Link Analysis 350

Google 350

Link popularity software 351

Generating Links, Step by Step 353

Register with directories 355

Ask friends and family 355

Ask employees 356

Contact association sites 356

Contact manufacturers’ websites 356

Contact companies you do business with 357

Ask to be a featured client 357

Submit to announcement sites and newsletters 357

Create a little linkbait 358

Find sites linking to your competition 358

Search for keyword “add url” 359

Mention your site in discussion groups 360

Working with blogs 361

Pursue offline PR 362

Give away content 362

Apply for online awards 362

Advertise 362

Use a service or buy links 363

Just wait 364

Fuggetaboutit 365

Be Careful Whom You Link To! 368

Chapter 20: Even More Great Places to Get Links 371

Got Content? Syndicate It! 371

The Duplicate Content “Problem” 372

Four syndication technologies 374

Getting the most out of syndication 376

Article libraries: Getting the word out 376

Syndicating Outreach and Guest Blogging 378

Syndicating Utilities and Infographics 379

And More Link-Building Ideas 381

PR and Link Building 382

The nofollow Curse 382

Who’s Going to Do All This Work?! 383

Chapter 21: Social Networking — Driven by Drivel 385

Just What Is Social Networking? 385

Beware the Social Networking Hype 387

The Drivel Factor 388

The SEO Benefits of Social Networking 389

Getting links through social networking sites 389

Grabbing search engine real estate 391

Promotional Benefit 391

The social networking sites are search engines 392

Social Networking — A Book in Itself 392

Chapter 22: Video and Images: Putting Your Best Face Forward 393

The SEO Benefits of Video 394

Videos on your site 395

Playing the video search engine game 398

Grabbing search engine real estate 399

Ranking Images 400

Chapter 23: Beyond the Basics 403

What’s on the Page? 403

Organic Results 404

Sitelinks Below Organic Results 404

Search Boxes 406

Special Organic Formatting 406

Knowledge Panels 408

Featured Snippets 408

Local Results 410

Image and Video Results 410

PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising Results 410

Shopping Results 411

News Results 411

Twitter Results 411

Getting Multiple Results on the Search Results Page 412

Chapter 24: When Google Bites Back: A Guide to Catastrophe 415

How, and How Much? 415

Imposing a penalty 416

The Google spam team 417

Is It Really a Penalty? A Little Analysis 418

Is the site still indexed? 419

Check with Google Search Console 419

Has Google flagged your site as “suspicious”? 421

Has the number of pages in the index significantly changed? 422

What happens when you search for your domain name? 422

What happens when you search for the domain name minus the TLD? 422

What happens when you search for a text string in your tag? 422

What happens when you search for a text string in your home page? 423

Try a penalty checker 423

Pulling It All Together: Have You Been Penalized? 424

Dealing with Manual Actions 426

Reconsideration requests 427

Psychological warfare? 428

Dealing with “Algorithmic Actions” 429

Digging Your Way Out of the Hole 430

Finding on-page problems 432

Finding link problems 433

Finding domain name problems 433

Sitting and waiting 433

Part 5: The Part of Tens 435

Chapter 25: Ten-Plus Myths and Mistakes 437

Myth: It’s All about Meta Tags and Submissions 437

Myth: Web Designers and Developers Understand Search Engines 438

Mistake: You Don’t Know Your Keywords 438

Mistake: Building the Site and Then Bringing in the SEO Expert 439

Myth: $25 Can Get Your Site a #1 Position 439

Myth: Google Partners Get You #1 Positions 440

Mistake: You Don’t Have Pages Optimized for Specific Keywords 440

Mistake: Your Pages Are Empty 441

Myth: Pay Per Click Is Where It’s At 441

Mistake: Ignoring Site Usability and Aesthetics 442

Mistake: Believing Everything You Read 442

Chapter 26: Ten-Plus Ways to Stay Updated 445

Let Me Help Some More 446

The Search Engines Themselves 446

Google’s Webmaster Pages 446

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide 447

Google Search Quality Raters Guidelines 447

Bing SEO Tips 448

Matt Cutts and John Mueller 448

Google’s Webmaster Help YouTube Channel 449

The Official Google Webmaster Help Group 449

Search Engine News and Tips Sites 450

Chapter 27: Ten-Plus Useful Things to Know 451

Checking Your Site Rank 451

Checking for Broken Links 453

Assessing Traffic with the Alexa Toolbar 454

Finding Your Keyword Density 455

Analyzing Your Site’s Traffic 455

Tracking Phone Calls 457

Checking for Duplication and Theft 458

Using 301 Redirects 458

You Need an Attractive Site 459

Using SEO Tools 460

Fixing Your Reputation 461

Working With Multiregional and Multilingual Sites 463

Partially Blocking Google 464

Index 465 

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.