SEO Toolkit

Marissa Raymo
248-745-4549
marissa.raymo@oakpress.com
How it Works
SEO, or Search Engine
Optimization is based on the SEO
Content
concept that you can drive More
traffic to your site by thinking Revenue
how the search engines think.
The job of a search engine is
More
to connect internet users with Traffic
the most relevant content, so
using SEO techniques will Increased
Increased
Ad
help you tell search engines Ad
Inventory
Inventory
why your content is relevant
to your target reader.
SEO Keywords
Did you ever wonder how the search engines decide
what websites to display when you type in a search term?
One of the main elements of SEO (especially when dealing
with blogs and other high content sites) is keyword
relevance.
You can increase your rank in the search engines by filling
your content (responsibly) with optimized keywords that
are both
 Relevant to your site/page/post content and
 Relevant to what users are searching for
Finding Relevant Keywords
 Google’s Free Keyword Search Tool Keyword competition – Look
for keywords with low
http://www.google.com/sktool/# competition and high search
volume.
Search Term:
Horse Training

Google’s
Suggested
Keywords

Average number of
times the suggested
keywords are
searched globally
and locally each
month
Keyword Basics
 Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web
page compared to the total number of words on the page. Optimum keyword
density is between 1 and 3 percent (per individual keyword or phrase). Much more
than that may be considered keyword spam, or “stuffing” and actually have a
negative affect on your search traffic.
 You can use keywords in links also. For example, if I want to direct readers to my
post on “How to Sell a Horse Online”, instead of linking to “Click Here,” I would
use:
And if you're looking to sell, don't forget to check out my tips on
How to Sell a Horse Online!
 This one may sound obvious, but make sure to use keywords that are relevant to
your blog content to build return traffic. For example, “Free Justin Bieber Tickets”
may be a great keyword phrase, but if it isn’t relevant to your content, then resist
the urge. It’s not conducive to return traffic, and the search engines can usually
see through anyway.
 Example Monthly
Keyword Comp Searches
professional
horse
training 0.31 390
Monthly
Keyword Comp. Searches
horse
training 0.38 90500 Monthly
Keyword Comp Searches
gaited
horse
training 0.42 590

Com Monthly
Keyword p Searches

how to sell
a horse 0.23 590
Incoming Links
Incoming Links, or links to your site from another
website, are also an important SEO tool.
The best backlinks are from relevant, reputable websites. For example, if you write a sports
blog, you’ll want to have other sports related sites link to your site.
If you’re blogging for one of the JRC newspaper sites, you already have at least one backlink
from a relevant, reputable (and generally, highly-ranked) site!

Another way to get incoming links is through Article Marketing. By submitting your
keyword-focused articles on these free sites and linking back to your blog, you will drive
their traffic back to your site. For Example :
 Scribd.com
 HubPages.com
 EZineArticles.com
 Zimbio.com
 Pages.Videojug.com

When possible, use an HTML link in your article (rather than the actual URL text) to link your
keyword phrase to the appropriate page on your blog.

Want to know who’s linking to you?

Check out: siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Setting up a free Google Analytics Account
Sign up for a free account at http://www.google.com/analytics (if you don’t already
have a Google account, you’ll need to sign up for one).

Go to “Create a new website

profile” and add your blog
URL.
Google will generate a tracking
code to place in the HTML of
your blog code to verify
ownership (see screenshot for
an example in Blogger).

Copy the provided HTML code, then Soon after you sign up for your free Google Analytics
paste it into your blog’s HTML before account, you should receive an e-mail from Google AdWords
the closing </head> tag with $100 in free advertising credits. This is a great way to
advertise your blog for additional traffic!
Analytics Basics
You can use Analytics to help
determine which search terms
bring the most traffic.
Bounce Rate: the percentage of single-page visits or
visits in which the person left your site from the
entrance page. A good tool to help determine
reader engagement.
Using Analytics to Measure SEO Efficiency
Your analytics account will give you a real-time glimpse into who is
visiting your site and how they’re getting there. You can even cross-
reference categories to determine traffic relevance.
For example, if
you write a local
business blog,
you can cross-
reference the
visitors’ city
against “type of
visitor” (new or
returning), to
determine
whether or not
your blog is
pulling in
relevant, local,
return traffic.
How do you know what’s working?
In the example below, out of the 45 organic visits (or visits that came from a keyword search on a
search engine rather than an inbound link from another site), 4 were return visitors. And of the
return visitors, 3 of the 4 entered my site searching for information on “Morgan Horses.”

So the topic of “Morgan Horses” (and the associated keywords), not only brought me blog traffic, but
actually brought blog followers!
And Remember…
You don’t have to sacrifice quality content to make
your posts search engine friendly. The key to
successful SEO blogging is balance.

After all, what’s the use of quality

content if nobody’s reading it?