search engine optimization an hour a day

Search Engine
Optimization
An Hour a Day
Jennifer Grappone
Gradiva Couzin
Wiley Publishing,Inc.
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Advance Praise for Search Engine
Optimization: An Hour a Day
Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day is an excellent primer for the beginner
do-it-yourself search-engine marketer. It covers the basic essentials of SEO but also
drills down into the challenges (both technical and business-specific) in an easy-to-read
and entertaining manner. The book offers a comprehensive SEO plan with metrics for
tracking your success that can be done conveniently in “an hour a day.” Even if you’re
considering outsourcing your SEO, this book is an excellent read and a great way to
understand the industry and the terminology involved.
—D
ANIEL RIVEONG, Head of SEO Services, e-Storm International
Finally, a common-sense approach to day-by-day search engine optimization. The
authors offer a comprehensive yet light-hearted guide to preparing a successful SEO
strategy. If you are just getting started, this book is a must read to minimize your risks
and maximize your rewards. SEO: An Hour a Day is habit-forming. Readers should
be prepared to get hooked on SEO.
—P.J. F
USCO, Search Engine Marketer, Writer, and Speaker
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Search Engine
Optimization
An Hour a Day

Jennifer Grappone
Gradiva Couzin
Wiley Publishing,Inc.
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Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN-13: 978-0-471-78753-2
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge our editors at Wiley: Willem Knibbe (whose savvy
and wit make him an excellent person to bump into at a party, not to mention a great guy to
have on your side while writing a book!); Heather O’Connor, a wellspring of cheerful redirection
and helpful insight; our technical editor, Micah Baldwin; our talented copy editor, Judy Flynn; our
production editors and schedule-keepers, Daria Meoli and Sarah Groff-Palermo; our compositors
at Happenstance Type-O-Rama; and the other hard-working members of the production team.
We are grateful that some of the best and brightest in the field of search marketing
were also the kindest. Thanks to Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen, Kevin Lee, P. J. Fusco, and
Aaron Wall for contributing their time and respected opinions to this project.
Thanks to the many good-natured members of the business community who shared their
stories, successes, and challenges with us: Anna and Dexter Chow, Christine Moore, Jill Roberts,
Paul Heller, Gina Boros, Susan McKenna, Sage Vivant, Mark Armstrong, and Ann Meyer. We
wish them all many targeted visitors and mad conversions! We owe special thanks to Eric Fixler
and Anthony Severo for providing invaluable technical reviews, and to Kelly Ryer and Sarah
Hubbard for generous helpings of advice and wisdom. Thanks also to Swork in Los Angeles
and Nervous Dog Coffee in San Francisco for the caffeine injections and free wireless!
We also thank our cherished friends and former Fine Brand Media colleagues, espe-
cially Jan Schmidt, Willo O’Brien, and Elizabeth Waller, for their contributions to this project.
We would be remiss if we did not also thank David Brennan, who has been a very good-
natured SEO guinea pig through the years. And thank you to Richard Bennion, who forced
Gradiva into this line of work in the first place.
As luck would have it, our families are full of people with amazing talents for things
linguistic and technical. Thank you to Barbara Gold, Laura Gold, Margaret Morris, and Alex
Robinson for ideas, enthusiasm, and other warmhearted intangibles and especially to our beloved
husbands, Todd Grappone and Lowell Robinson, for their love and support. And to our most
beautiful and wonderful children, thank you for making this book a part of your daily lives too.
Yes, Bennett, there are pictures in this book. Yes, Enzo, we made it with our ’puters. Yes, Jonah,

you can press some buttons too. Yes, Zehara, Mommy’s coming back. We love you all.
With love to Todd, a superb tech consultant, ace dad,
and all-around supportive guy. —JG
To Lowell, my anchor & my answer. —GC
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Jennifer Grappone is a Los Angeles–based search marketing consultant whose work has
resulted in many targeted hits and happy clients in various industries including media,
entertainment, software, and non-profit. Starting out as a writer/producer/director of
industrial and corporate videos, Jennifer followed the dot-com boom and became a proj-
ect manager for large-scale web development projects before working exclusively in SEO
in 2000. Jennifer advocates a holistic approach to SEO, one that combines elements of
good writing, usability, search-friendly site design, and link building. You can often find
Jennifer hunched over a laptop in any number of wireless cafes in Northeast LA. Stop by
and say hello!
Gradiva Couzin has been working in search marketing since its early days in 1998. Since
then, she has improved the search presence of organizations ranging from small businesses
working on a shoestring to Fortune 500 companies. Her SEO strategy creates win-win
solutions by improving the match between searchers and websites. With a history as a civil
engineer and experience in website and database development, Gradiva enjoys the technical
side of SEO and loves to facilitate communication between techie and non-techie types.
She is also an accomplished artist, painting oil portraits on commission. Gradiva lives and
works in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights with her husband and two small children.
About the Authors
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Introduction xii
Part I Foundation 1
Chapter 1 Clarify Your Goals 3
What Is SEO? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Do I Need to Perform SEO for My Website? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
What Are the Overall Goals of My Business? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What Function Does My Website Serve?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
How Is My Website Connecting with the Goals of My Business?. . . . . 8
The SEO You Have, Not the One You Want 9
Some Interim Solutions 9
Who Do I Want to Visit My Website?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What Do I Want Visitors to Do on My Website? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Which Pages Do I Most Want My Website Visitors to See? . . . . . . . . 14
How Will I Measure the Success of This SEO Campaign? . . . . . . . . . 16
Tracking Lets You Drop the Duds 16
Tracking Will Help You Keep Your Job 17
Tracking Helps You Stay Up-to-Date 17
Chapter 2 Customize Your Approach 19
It’s Your SEO Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
B2B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
B2C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Large Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Small Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Brick-and-Mortar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Blogger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Nonprofit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chapter 3 Eternal Truths of SEO 39
Robots Deliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Search Results Are Blended . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Directories 41
Contents
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CONTENTS
■
Pay-Per-Click 42

Site Feeds 43
Meta Search Engines 43
Algorithms Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Humans Are Smart—Computers Aren’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Text Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Keyword Selection Is Key 46
It’s Not Just about Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Ranks Change 51
A Holistic Approach Helps 53
Search Engines Don’t Like Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
SEO Is Not Brain Surgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Chapter 4 How the Search Engines Work Right Now 57
In Pursuit of Right Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Google Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
The Best of the Rest: Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Ask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Yahoo! 61
MSN 63
AOL 65
Ask 66
Organic Ranking Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Paid Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Pay-per-Click Advertising 71
Paid Inclusion 73
SEO Trendspotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Part II Strategy 77
Chapter 5 Get Your Team on Board 79
The Challenge of SEO Team Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Marketing, Sales, and Public Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Marketing: VIPs of SEO 82
Selling SEO to Sales 84

SEO and Public Relations Can Relate 85
IT, Webmasters, and Programmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Communicating with IT 89
The IT Workload Conundrum 90
How SEO Benefits IT 91
Graphic Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Value Graphics 92
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■ CONTENTS
Educate and Empower 93
Make It Official 95
Writers and Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Executives and Product Managers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Chapter 6 Your One-Month Prep: Baseline and Keywords 99
Your SEO Idea Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Week 1: Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Monday: Your Keyword Gut Check 102
Tuesday: Resources to Expand and Enhance the List 105
Wednesday Keyword Data Tools 107
Thursday: Keyword Data Gathering 110
Friday: Your Short List 116
Week 2: Baseline Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Monday: Conversions 120
Tuesday: Ranks 121
Wednesday: Indexed Pages 123
Thursday: Inbound Links 125
Friday: Site Assessment 126
Week 3: Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Monday: Identify Your Top Five Competitors 128

Tuesday: Snooping Tools and Techniques 129
Wednesday: Assess On-Page Factors 132
Thursday: Assess Off-Page Factors 134
Friday: Paid Competition 136
Week 4: Baseline Monthly Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Monday: Keywords, Landing Pages, and Competition 138
Tuesday: Site Visibility 139
Wednesday: Conversions and Red Flags 141
Thursday: Personalize 143
Friday: Quick Reference 144
Part III Your SEO Plan 147
Chapter 7 Month One: Kick It into Gear 149
Week 1: Basic Site Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Monday: Page Titles 151
Tuesday: Meta Tags 153
Wednesday: Robot Walk-Through 156
Thursday: Site Text 157
Friday: Implementation 158
Week 2: Link Building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Monday: Your Existing Links 160
Tuesday: Submit to Directories 162
Wednesday: Surf for More Link Opportunities 167
Thursday: The Art of Link Letters 170
Friday: Submittals and E-mails 172
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Week 3: Set Up Your PPC Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Monday: Study Hall 174

Tuesday: Prep Your PPC Keywords 176
Wednesday: Write Your Ad Text 181
Thursday: Enter Your Data into the PPC System 183
Friday: Turn On Your PPC Campaign 183
Week 4: Visibility Check and Monthly Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Monday: Check Organic Status 185
Tuesday: Check Links 187
Wednesday: Check Conversions 188
Thursday: Monitor PPC Ads 189
Friday: Action Items 191
Chapter 8 Month Two: Establish the Habit 193
Week 5: Site Structure Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Monday: The Spider’s-Eye View 194
Tuesday: Shape Up Your Site Map 196
Wednesday: Clean Up Ugly Listings 198
Thursday: Your Robots.txt File 201
Friday: PPC Quick Check 204
Week 6: Conversion Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Monday: PPC Conversion Tracking 206
Tuesday: Get to Know Your Basic Server Stats 208
Wednesday: Tracking Online Conversions 211
Thursday: Tracking Offline Conversions 215
Friday: PPC Quick Check/Link Building 217
Week 7: Research and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Monday: SEO News and Trends 219
Tuesday: Task Journal Investigation 222
Wednesday: Explore Local/International Search 223
Thursday Shopping and Media Search 228
Friday: PPC Quick Check/Link Building 230
Week 8: Visibility Check and Monthly Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Monday: Check Organic Status 231
Tuesday: Check Links 232
Wednesday: Check Conversions and Image Improvement 233
Thursday: Monitor PPC Ads 235
Friday: Action Items 236
Chapter 9 Month Three: It’s a Way of Life 237
Week 9: Build Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Monday: Discover Content You Already Have 238
Tuesday: Develop New Content 241
Wednesday: Optimize Non-HTML Documents 244
Thursday: Content Thieves 247
Friday: PPC Quick Check/Link Building 249
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Week 10: PPC and ROI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Monday: PPC Sanity Check 250
Tuesday: Organic Apples and Oranges 253
Wednesday: A/B Testing 257
Thursday: Close the PPC ROI Loop 259
Friday: PPC Quick Check/Link Building 260
Week 11: What’s Your Problem?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Monday: New Site, New Problems 261
Tuesday: Copywriting to Improve Your Search Results Snippets 262
Wednesday: Catch Up with Your Team 265
Thursday: Fun Tools for Site Assessment 267
Friday: PPC Quick Check/Link Building 268
Week 12: Visibility Check and Quarterly Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Monday: Check Organic Status 269
Tuesday: Check Links 272

Wednesday: Check Conversions and Image Improvement 272
Thursday: Monitor PPC Ads 274
Friday: Action Items 275
Moving On: Forging Your Own SEO Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Chapter 10 Extra Credit and Guilt-Free Slacking 279
The Slacking Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Ideas for Reducing Your SEO Workload 281
The Extra Credit Continuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Day-by-Day Extra Credit Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Prep Month, Week 1, Tuesday: Internal Search Function 284
Prep Month, Week 3, Friday: Checking Competitors’ Directory Presence 285
Your SEO Plan, Week 4, Monday: Robots Visiting Your Site 286
Your SEO Plan, Week 5, Tuesday: Google Sitemaps 286
Your SEO Plan, Week 7, Tuesday: Task Journal Investigation 287
Your SEO Plan, Week 9, Monday: Optimizing Press Releases 289
Your SEO Plan, Week 9, Wednesday: How the Search Engines
View Non-HTML Documents 289
Your SEO Plan, Week 9, Thursday: Content Thieves 290
Your SEO Plan, Week 12, Monday: Checking Additional Keywords 291
Appendix A 293
Glossary 305
Index 313
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INTRODUCTION
■
How is your website doing on the search engines? Need a little help?
Well, you’re holding the right book in your hands. This book will
walk you through the steps to achieve a targeted, compelling presence
on the major search engines. There are no secrets or tricks here, just

down-to-earth, real-world advice and a clear program to get you
where you want to be. And, with luck, you’ll even have a little fun
along the way!
If you could think of the person that you would most want visiting your website,
who would that person be? Traditional advertisers (TV, magazines, newspaper, direct
mail) might describe this person in terms of their demographics: 18 to 24 years old? Male
or female? Wealthy or not so wealthy? But in the world of search, our focus is very differ-
ent. This is how we think:
Who could be a more perfect target audience than someone who is already looking
for your company, your product or service, or just the sort of information you’ve got on
your website? The trick, of course, is to figure out who those people are, develop an
extremely targeted message for them, and put it where they will notice it.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) encompasses a wide variety of tasks that
improve a website’s presence on search engines. Maybe you’ve heard a few SEO catch-
phrases—meta tags, keyword density, or PageRank—but you don’t know exactly how to
tie them all together into a meaningful package. That’s where this book comes in!
Why SEO?
There are many good reasons to pursue SEO for your website. If you’re a numbers per-
son, you may find these stats compelling:
• A 2004 survey found that in business-to-business (B2B) purchasing decisions,
63.9 percent of respondents stated that a search engine would be the first place
they would go to research a product or service. (Source: Enquiro/MarketingSherpa)
Pearl of Wisdom: The person you most want to find your website is the person who is
searching for you!
Introduction
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■ INTRODUCTION
• Research conducted in 2005 by search engine consulting firm OneUpWeb.com
showed that top 10 placement in Google increased site traffic to five times its previ-

ous levels in the first month.
• A 2005 survey by search marketing firm iCrossing found that search engines are
the most popular tool for researching products and services before making an
online purchase, and of these searchers 74 percent use search engines to research
products and 54 percent use search engines to find the website from which to buy.
But if you do SEO for no other reason, do it so you won’t be handing website visi-
tors over to your competitors on a silver platter! Here are a few embarrassing situations
that SEO can help you avoid:
• A potential customer is trying to find your phone number so they can call in an
order. Searching for your product name, they come across your competitor and call
them instead.
• The good news is that your website is #1 on Google! The bad news is that your
#1 rank is wasted on a tedious technical PDF that you didn’t even know was on
your site!
• Congratulations: You’ve accrued 157 high-quality links to your home page over the
years! But since your last website redesign, you’ve spent the last six months with
157 links to your “File not found” error page!
The best thing about SEO is that when it’s done correctly (follow the advice in this
book and you’ll always be on the up-and-up), it benefits both you and your site visitors!
The reason:
How? By providing a clear path from need to fulfillment. By making sure your
message is simple, accurate, up-to-date, and most important, put in front of the right
people.
Why an Hour a Day?
Like water filling an ice-cube tray, SEO can fill up all the hours in the day you are willing
to give it. So let’s get this painful truth out of the way right now: Good SEO takes work—
lots of work.
Pearl of Wisdom: Good SEO helps searchers get where they want to go.
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INTRODUCTION
■
Now you’re probably wondering, “How little time can I spend on SEO and get
away with it?”
SEO is an amorphous, open-ended task. It includes a wide variety of activities,
ranging from HTML edits to reading news blogs. It would be overwhelming to try to
learn every aspect of SEO at once, but jumping in without a game plan is not the most
effective strategy either. You’re busy, and SEO is not your only job. So for you, the best
way to learn SEO is to roll up your sleeves and do something, an hour at a time. Com-
plete one SEO task a day and you’ll see substantial results.
One of the benefits of breaking your SEO campaign into bite-size one-hour morsels
is that you’ll have time to digest and learn. You can take care of your day’s assignment in
an hour and have plenty of time for thinking and reflecting the rest of the day.
How Long Until I See Results?
The SEO process includes a lot of waiting: waiting for search engines to visit your site,
waiting for other site owners to respond to your link requests, and oftentimes waiting for
others within your organization to complete your requested HTML edits. Nobody likes to
wait, and nobody really believes us when we tell them this:
This book sets you up for a long-haul SEO process. We take you through a one-
month prep period in which you’ll bring together all of the components you’ll need to
begin a successful SEO campaign—one that’s just right for your unique situation. Then
you’ll launch into Your SEO Plan, a customizable hour-a-day routine designed to increase
quality traffic and improve your site’s presence in the search engines. Your SEO Plan is
three months long, but you may start to see improvement in just days.
After three months of following the Plan, your website will have a solid foundation
of results-minded optimization. Your SEO campaign will be moving along and becoming
more and more specific to your needs and strategies. You will have smart analysis in place
to determine which strategies are working and which aren’t—and you’ll drop the duds
and focus your efforts in directions that are working for you.
Most importantly, after three months of following the Plan, you will be a fully

fledged search engine marketer. You won’t need day-by-day assignments anymore because
you will be forging your own path. You will have great habits and tools for keeping your
campaign buffed, and you’ll be well on your way to teaching us a thing or two.
Pearl of Wisdom: Believe it.SEO requires patience.
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■ INTRODUCTION
Who Can Use This Book
Truth be told, SEO is not hard. It’s not rocket science, and it certainly doesn’t require a
degree in marketing, design, or anything else for that matter. While SEO is not hard, it
can be tedious. It requires diligence and organization.
Our plan will work for just about anyone who is willing to make the hour-a-day
commitment. We offer specific advice for
• small organizations
• large organizations
• one-person operations
• business to business (B2B)
• business to consumer (B2C)
• nonprofits
• bloggers
• adult sites
You certainly don’t need to be selling anything to need SEO! All you need is a web-
site that would benefit from an increase in targeted traffic.
Even if you’re considering outsourcing some or all of your SEO tasks, it’s a good
idea to become familiar with the SEO process before you pay someone to take it over.
Obviously, we’ve got nothing against companies who hire SEO specialists—they’re our
bread and butter!—but nobody knows your own business like you do. You are, therefore,
uniquely prepared for this task.
We don’t like jargon and we’ve tried to avoid it here (except, of course, when we
teach it to you so you can impress others!). You’ll learn concepts on a need-to-know basis

and never waste your time on dead-end tasks. We don’t bog you down with SEO history
lessons, but we don’t skimp on the important background knowledge either. Between the
“Eternal Truths” and the “Right Now” of SEO that we’ve included in this book, we’ve
got you covered. We know you’re busy, and this book is written accordingly.
What’s Inside
The heart of this book is Your SEO Plan, a three-month day-by-day program for improv-
ing your website’s presence and increasing targeted traffic. We’ve divvied up the days into
tasks that we estimate will take about an hour each. Depending on your circumstances,
your familiarity with the subject matter, and the logistics of your website, it may take you
more or less time to complete certain tasks.
The Plan is preceded by the preliminary planning and information you’ll need to
carry it out. That means you should read this book from the beginning and work through
Your SEO Plan in order from start to finish.
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INTRODUCTION
■
Here’s what you’ll find inside.
Part I: Foundation
Chapter 1, “Clarify Your Goals,” helps you frame your thinking about your website and
your goals in an SEO-friendly way.
Chapter 2, “Customize Your Approach,” provides guidance for adjusting your Plan to
suit the special advantages and challenges faced by different types of organizations.
Chapter 3, “Eternal Truths of SEO,” gives an overview of the longstanding, or “eternal,”
factors in effective search engine optimization. Learn these truths to bring longevity to
your SEO success.
Chapter 4, “How the Search Engines Work Right Now,” presents a current snapshot of
the world of search.
Part II: Strategy
Chapter 5, “Get Your Team on Board,” offers been-there-done-that advice for eliminat-

ing intra-organizational hang-ups that are common in SEO.
Chapter 6, “Your One-Month Prep: Baseline and Keywords,” is all about preparation:
researching, organizing, and setting the direction for Your SEO Plan. Several worksheets
and templates will help you along the way.
Part III: Your SEO Plan
Chapter 7, “Month One: Kick It into Gear,” launches Your SEO Plan with basic website
optimization, a link-building method, and a starter pay-per-click campaign.
Chapter 8, “Month Two: Establish the Habit,” shows you how to use your site’s struc-
ture to your SEO advantage, teaches you the best habits for keeping current with SEO
trends, and helps you choose an all-important method of tracking and measuring your
SEO success.
Chapter 9, “Month Three: It’s a Way of Life,” takes your SEO campaign further with
content building, improving your return on investment, and in-depth troubleshooting.
Chapter 10, “Extra Credit and Guilt-Free Slacking,” gives you practical tips on reducing
your SEO workload if your schedule is less than perfect and helps you dig deeper in spe-
cific areas if you are especially enthusiastic.
This Book’s Companion Website
In addition to the chapters you hold in your hand, you can find extra information and
resources on our companion website,
www.yourseoplan.com.
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■ INTRODUCTION
There, you can download all the worksheets and templates you need for the Plan
and find plenty of useful SEO links and tips as well. When we’re not saving the world one
website at a time, we’ll be uploading articles and answering your “Ask the Experts” ques-
tions on the website. We hope it will become one of your most useful bookmarks!
Conventions Used in This Book
We’ve been working together in close quarters for so many years now that some-
times it seems our brains are fused. Gradiva tends toward the “left brain” side of

our collective SEO brain, with enough logic, math proficiency, and analytical
thinking for both of us. On the other hand, Jennifer is more of a “right brain”
thinker, with a flair for writing and a preference for the creative aspects of SEO.
One thing we agree on: Good SEO requires a little left brain and a little right
brain! Throughout this book, you’ll see the “left brain/right brain” icon wherever
we think you need the view from both sides.
We love to learn from others’ mistakes and successes, and you can too! Look for
the shovel icon accompanying stories from the real world: case studies, expert
opinions, and even some tragic tales from the trenches. We’ve changed most of
the names to protect the privacy—and reputations—of the parties involved.
This pearl represents a special tip or tidbit of wisdom that you may find espe-
cially helpful.
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INTRODUCTION
■
The “Now” icon indicates an SEO task that’s assigned to you. When you come
across one of these, it’s time to set the book down and get to work!
We wrote this book with the busy professional in mind, so all you need to commit
to is the hour-a-day plan. But sometimes, you might be inclined to take your cam-
paign a little further. For you go-getters, we’ve provided the extra credit icon.
And for those of you who spend most of your time wishing you had more time,
here’s the icon for you. Next to the slacker icon, you’ll find options for trimming
down your tasks without compromising results.
If you’re dying to roll up your sleeves and do something right now, your enthusi-
asm is noted and appreciated. Fire up your computer and we’ll be waiting for you on
page 1!
slacker
xtra
cred

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Foundation
So, you want to differentiate your website from
the millions of others out there on the Internet?
Great! Let’s get started! Whether you’re starting
from scratch or just looking for a new approach,
the hardest part of embarking on a Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) campaign is knowing where
to begin. In Part I, we walk you through a little
self-reflection and search engine basics to lay the
groundwork for Your SEO Plan:
I
Chapter 1 Clarify Your Goals
Chapter 2 Customize Your Approach
Chapter 3 Eternal Truths of SEO
Chapter 4 How the Search Engines Work Right Now
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3
■ CLARIFY YOUR GOALS
Chapter Contents
What Is SEO?
Do I Need to Perform SEO for My Website?
What Are the Overall Goals of My Business?
What Function Does My Website Serve?
How Is My Website Connecting with the
Goals of My Business?
Who Do I Want to Visit My Website?
What Do I Want Visitors to Do on My Website?
Which Pages Do I Most Want Website Visitors

to See?
How Do I Measure the Success of This SEO
Campaign?
Clarify Your Goals
A good Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
campaign needs to be laser-focused on your busi-
ness goals, so it has to start with a healthy dose
of thought and reflection. In this chapter, we’ll
walk you through the key questions you’ll want
to consider before you get started.
1
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4
CHAPTER
1:
CLARIFY YOUR GOALS
■
What Is SEO?
OK, let’s see a show of hands: How many of you are reading this book because you
want a #1 rank in Google? Yeah, we thought so. As SEO consultants, we know how
good it feels when your website makes it to the top of the heap. Listen, we sincerely
hope you get your #1 Google rank, but it won’t help you if it’s bringing in the wrong
audience or pointing them to a dead-end website. So don’t think of SEO as just a way
to improve your site’s ranking.
The term Search Engine Optimization describes a diverse set of activities that you
can perform to increase the amount of targeted traffic that comes to your website from
search engines (you may also have heard these activities called Search Engine Marketing
or Search Marketing). This includes things you do to your site itself, such as making
changes to your text and HTML code. It also includes communicating directly with the
search engines, or pursuing other sources of traffic by making requests for listings or

links. Tracking, research, and competitive review are also part of the SEO package.
SEO is not advertising, although it may include an advertising component. It is
not public relations, although it includes communication tasks similar to PR. As a con-
tinually evolving area of online marketing, SEO may sound complicated, but it is very
simple in its fundamental goal: gaining targeted visitors.
Do I Need to Perform SEO for My Website?
It may seem like a no-brainer, but actually, the answer is not necessarily Yes. If any of
the following examples apply to you, you may not be in need of an SEO campaign
right now:
• You have a website that you really don’t want strangers to find, such as a train-
ing tool for your employees or a classroom tool for your students.
• Your site is already ranking well, you’re satisfied with your sales, and you don’t
want to rock the boat.
• You’re in a big hurry—say, you’ll go out of business without a major upswing
in revenue in the next couple of months. This is not to say that SEO can’t help
you, but good SEO takes time. You may need to focus your energies elsewhere
right now.
• Your site is going to be completely rebuilt or redesigned in the next couple of
months. If that’s the case, read Shari Thurow’s book Search Engine Visibility
(New Riders, 2002) about how to build a search-friendly site from the ground
up. If this is you, you’ll want to keep our book on hand, though, for use as soon
as your new site is launched. If this list doesn’t apply to you, we think you’re
ready to begin your SEO adventure!
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■ WHAT ARE THE OVERALL GOALS OF MY BUSINESS?
What’s Your Excuse?
We often encounter people who offer the following reasons not to do SEO:
“I don’t have enough money.” If you don’t have any money in your budget for SEO, simply fol-
low our plan with a focus on organic (that means low-cost or no-cost!) optimization.Believe it or

not,you can make substantial improvements without spending a dime.
“I don’t have enough time.” SEO is a very flexible process. If you don’t have an hour a day,use
whatever time you do have and work through the plan over a longer period.Be sure to look at
Chapter 10,“Extra Credit and Guilt-Free Slacking”for advice (Not that we mean to call you a
slacker…).
“My website sucks!” Don’t give up! This is a very common problem for folks setting out on an
SEO campaign.If everybody waited until their site was perfect before doing SEO, nobody would
do SEO.This book will give you some practical workarounds for your situation.
It is a rare site indeed that couldn’t use a little improvement in the SEO depart-
ment. And, with the importance of SEO on the rise, if you don’t need it today, it’s a good
bet you’ll need to brush up your SEO smarts for tomorrow. So even if you don’t think
you need SEO right now, we recommend that you take the time to work through the
questions in this chapter and make sure that your goals aren’t begging for a little help.
What Are the Overall Goals of My Business?
Most likely, the fundamental goal of your business, when you get down to the bottom
of it, is to make money by selling a product or service. However, there may be nuances
to even such a straightforward goal as this. And there are a whole host of other possible
goals and subgoals that your business is likely to have.
Perhaps yours is a large company with branding as an important long-term goal.
Maybe your company wants to make money with certain products but is willing to
take a loss in other areas. Maybe you are starting up with investor backing and do not
need to turn a profit for years. Perhaps you are a nonprofit, with a goal to improve the
world and inspire others to do the same. Whatever way you’re leaning, your business
goals will affect your SEO campaign strategy.
For instance, consider the fictional situation of Jason, a founding partner at
Babyfuzzkin, a company selling unique, high-end baby clothes. This business makes its
money directly through online sales. It’s a small operation, so there is a limit to how
many orders the business can handle. The Babyfuzzkin fantasy would be a steady flow
of, say, 100 orders per month. But there is more to the story: Eventually, the partners
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