SEO…From Past to Present

Brent D. Payne
TRIBUNE INTERACTIVE
Let’s Journey Back, Nearly Two
Decades Ago When . . .
…There Were No Search Engines

Launched
Circa: 1992
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1993
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1994
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1994
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1994
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1994
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1994
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1995
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1995
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1996
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1996
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1996
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1996
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1998
Then… There Were Lots of Search
Engines

Launched
Circa: 1999
Back Then… Yahoo! Dominated
1.25% 0.85%
1.58%
0.80%
I had less than
2.76% 1% of the
market in ‘99.
5.05%

8.91%

11.18%
55.81%

11.81%

Yahoo! Excite Altavista Infoseek Lycos Go To Snap MSN Northern Light Google
But Now… There are Just a Few
And Google Dominates Market Share

Yahoo! Bing Ask

15% 8% 3%

All Others
2%

Google
72%
So How Did Google Do It?

Because I am
just the coolest
of all the
robots…of
course!
Well…First Let’s Learn More About
How Google Works

Well, okay but in

the end… you’ll
discover it’s
because I’m the
coolest robot.
How Does Google Find Content?
 How Does Google Store and Index a
Page’s Content?

Can you discover

which pages contain
“civil” and “war” and
“reconstruction”?

[Answer: Only documents 35, 48, and 91 contain all three words "civil" and "war" and "reconstruction."]
 The Google Differentiator That
Changed Search Engines Forever
Okay…But How Does PageRank Work?

Popularity AUTHORITY
Popularity
RELEVANCE
Popularity

LOCAL BLOGS CNN On-Page

SMALL
NYTIMES
WEBSITES
Link Off-
PERSONAL
PROFILES
LATIMES Text Page

URL
But…We Don’t Know EVERYTHING!

Authority

Popularity Relevance
( k 1) 1 (k )
x xj
Page
i
j Bi N j

Rank
SEO Is Important If You Want People to
Find Your Content…
Did you know
that people
having me
search for stuff
over 2,000 times
per second?
So What Can We Do to Get Our
Content to the Top of Google?

This is a great piece

of content. I can’t
wait to share it
with the world!
 First…Googlebot Psych 101
01100111 01101111
01101111 01100111
01101100 01100101
01100010 01101111
01110100

• Googlebot doesn’t understand puns

Literal • Googlebot doesn’t get jokes
• Googlebot is a robot not a buddy of yours

• Googlebot only understands what you tell him

Context • Metromix ‘Get Lucky!’ headline
• Laptop ‘case’ versus laptop ‘bag’

Blind • Googlebot can’t read iFramed content

• Googlebot can’t read images (needs ALT text)
• Googlebot can’t read javascript
spots • Googlebot barely understands flash files
 RELEVANCE

Title Tag
H1 Tag
On-Page H2 Tag
Bold, Italics

Utilize Keywords
Link to Related Content
Link NoFollow Competition Off- Similar Sites
Similar Pages
Text Page Toolbar PageRank
Beware of NoFollow

Structured
Minimal Folders
URL Minimal Parameters
Keyphrase Focused
 It Starts With Keyword Research
Weather What are
Sports people
Local searching for?
News How can I find
Movies
out?
Fashion Politics

Food

Horoscopes

Travel

<Relevance>
 Google Keyword Research
Tool

Provides long list of

related terms (exports)

Shows approx. search

volume

Shows advertiser
competition for terms

Shows keywords by URL

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
 Google Hot Trends:
Introduction
Top 40 Search Terms
• Shows highest volume
search terms by percentage
of increase
• Updated every hour on the
hour
Powerful for . . .
• Breaking news
• Historical top terms by date

http://www.google.com/trends
 Google Trends: Michael
Jackson’s Death

http://www.google.com/trends
 Google Hot Trends: An Indication
of Hourly Search Trends

Hotness Factor

• Volcanic – Extreme volume, usually high competition

• On Fire – High volume, considerably less competition
• Spicy – Strong volume, not worth chasing unless it’s a
hyperlocal term or you’re a small site though
• Medium – Medium volume, not worth chasing after

Other Things to Consider

• Graph – Watch it and catch terms while they’re still peaking

• Related Searches – Use them in your body text,
subheadlines, etc.

http://www.google.com/trends
 Google Trends: Compare
Search Volume by Terms
Compare multiple terms to
determine which term
receives the highest volume of
search traffic.

Use the drop down menus to

change the date range and
regional data sets.

Export the data to a CSV

(Opens in Excel, must be
logged into Google Account).

http://www.google.com/trends
 Find Top Volume Search Terms
by Category (3 Day Lag)
Discover the top volume search terms by
category

Discover fastest rising search terms by category

http://www.google.com/insights/search
 Microsoft’s xRank: Celebrity
Keyword Research
Trends Data

• Updates multiple times per

day
• Graph of trend history

Categories

• Celebrities
• Musicians
Hmm.
• Politicians
Gates, got
xRank Related Articles
right at
least. • News
• Images
• Videos

http://www.bing.com/xrank
 Put The Keywords People Are
Searching for In the Content
• The most important SEO field
Homepage/Content • Communicate loudly but don’t spam
HTML Title Tag • Must be unique!

• Important mainly due to click through

Meta Description • The goal is to entice the human click to your link
• Write a unique description for each page on your site

• Beat up your designers that use if tor ‘style’ instead of SEO

H1 Tag/Headline emphasis
• Should be used for the main heading of the page (i.e. headline)

• Keep the first paragraph close to the H1 tag in the HTML code
First Paragraph • Do not break up the code within the paragraph with other HTML
• All pages MUST have at least a paragraph of text

• Use Google News categories for increased visibility

G’ News Categories, • Bold/italics puts heavier SEO emphasis on keywords
Bold/Italics, URL Relevance
• URL is important for relevance with inbound links
 AUTHORITY
Popularity
 Linking Structure: Unorganized
Article
2 None of this
Article Article content is that
1 3 popular. I’m not
going to rank it
well.
Section
Blog 1
C Links for
‘Topic X’

Section
Blog 2
B

Section
Blog 3
A
 . . . and why it’s bad for SEO.
The competitor is
really popular for
‘Topic X’. I’m going to
rank the competitor
really well.

Competitor

Story 1
Story 2

Story 3
Blog 1 Blog 2
Blog 3
Linking Structure: Organized
Blog 2
Blog 1 Blog 3
Section
Story 3
A
Section
Story 2
B
Pre-
determined Section
Story 1 landing page
for ‘Topic X’ C

Now this is popular

content. I’m going to
rank it well.
 . . . And why it’s good for SEO.
Your site has some
really popular and
relevant content. I’m
going to rank it
better than CNN,
MSNBC, etc.

Your site!

CNN
MSNBC

FOX News
Reuters NY Times
NPR
 Popularity
Popularity

LOCAL BLOGS CNN

SMALL
NYTIMES
WEBSITES

PERSONAL
LATIMES
PROFILES
 Using Social Media to Improve the
Popularity Aspect of the Google Algo

Popularity
Social Media & Search: Social Media
Vastly Increases Inbound Links

Popularity
 Formula: The Social Media Title
The Viral Content Formula:
• [Number] [Adjective/Superlative] [Key Phrase] [Media
Type]

Examples:
• 10 Movies that teach you how to commit crimes.
• 10 iPhone finance apps that count.
• 16 Drinks named for authors and their books.
• 25 Reasons it’s great to be an IT guy (or girl).
• Morgan Freeman’s 5 most memorable movie moments.
Popularity
 Other Ways to Affect Popularity

Content Link Building Research

• Quality, • Make It Easy • Know What

Timely for Sites to People are
Content! Link to You Searching for
• It Creates • Utilize Social • Google
Inbound Links Media Trends
Automatically • Google
Insights

Popularity
The Many Ways to Rank In Google
Universal Search
I am actually
quite a
complicated
robot.
 I serve content
from many
different verticals
on a single page.
 I am launching
more and more
One-Box items, like
the Music One-Box
and Real-Time
One-Box.
 Closing Comments

Summary

• Search Engines Use Links to Determine Where a Page

Should Rank In Search Results
• Google is the Dominant Search Engine Today
• Popularity = Number of Inbound Links
• Authority = Quality of Inbound Links
• Relevance = How Your Content Relates to the User’s
Query
• There Are Many Ways to Rank Well in Google Via Their
Many ‘One-Box’ Inclusions
 Contact Info
Brent D. Payne
• Director, Search Engine Optimization
• Tribune Company, 435 N. Michigan, Chicago, IL 60611
• Office: 312.527.8387
• Cell: 312.324.3344
• Email: bpayne@tribune.com
• Instant Messenger/Personal Email:
bpayne@gmail.com
• Twitter: @BrentDPayne (follow w/ caution)
• Driver’s License Number: BDP24456U8
• Passport Number: 443876284