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 whom you would most want visiting your website, who would that person be? Traditional advertisers 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 different. 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 catchphrases—meta tags, link bait, 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 person, you may find these stats compelling:

• A 2007 survey by Internet data firm comScore found that 60 percent of consumers use the Web as their first-line tool to search for local businesses, and 60 percent of those searchers go on to make a purchase from a local business.

• A 2006 survey by AOL and Henley Centre, a UK research firm, found that 73 percent of respondents listed search engines as important sources of information when considering a product or service—a higher percentage than personal recommendations, TV, or print media.

• Research conducted by search engine marketing firm iProspect in 2006 showed search engine users increasingly clicking on results in the first page of search results (62 percent as compared to 48 percent four years previously). The same study showed that fewer people are willing to click on listings past the third page of search results (10 percent compared to 19 percent four years previously).

But if you do SEO for no other reason, do it so you won't be handing website visitors 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 two 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.

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 editing HTML to reading 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. Complete 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 webmasters and bloggers to link to you, 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 on 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 full-fledged search 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.

Who Should 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)

• Web developers

• Nonprofits

• Bloggers

• Adult sites

You certainly don't need to be selling anything to need SEO! All you need is a website 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.

Does It Work?

"Significantly improved my Google rankings."

"Wonderful book. After I read it, I got on 1st and 2nd page results on Google for all of my keywords."

"I did spend many hours following the book's advice, and my website is now number 2."

"I didn't get it. But thanks, now I do."

This is a sampling of the feedback we've received from readers of the first edition. And the positive feedback keeps coming, not only from people who are seeing results for their website, but also from people who are delighted to finally have a solid grasp on this slippery topic. Some people follow the three-month Plan from beginning to end, while others use the book as a trusty reference. As one reader put it, "I found that I could get what I needed by dipping in and out, skimming through."

Does it work? Yes, it does. We know this because we use these techniques ourselves, and they have delivered high ranks and targeted traffic, and increased sales for our clients' websites.

What's Inside

The heart of this book is Your SEO Plan, a three-month, day-by-day program for improving 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.

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 eliminating 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, as well as choosing an all-important method of tracking and measuring your SEO success. 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 an action plan for promoting your site through social search.

Chapter 8: "Month Two: Establish the Habit" Shows you how to set up a starter pay-per-click campaign, offers several useful activities for improving online sales, and teaches you the best habits for keeping current with SEO trends.

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, then walks you through your first SEO status report.

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 specific areas if you are especially enthusiastic.

What's New in This Edition

We've put a lot of thought into selecting only the new aspects of SEO that are worth your time and effort, so you can stay on the cutting edge of search while sidestepping fly-by-night fads and unproven techniques. This edition of Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day now contains:

• Detailed analysis and instructions on using the Social Web to benefit your website

• Instructions on selecting and using web analytics tools (because, due to recent developments, there's no excuse not to!)

• The latest scoop on shopping search, consumer-generated content, and specialty search such as local, blog, image, and video

• Even more tales from the trenches: real stories from real businesses like yours

We've listened to our wonderful, hardworking readers, and we now give you more of what you've asked for: We've expanded our advice for small businesses and included lots of new tidbits for really small businesses. We've included an informative new section just for web designers. And naturally, we've updated all of the information on search engine ranking algorithms and red flags.

Whether you're following the Plan step by step or using the book as a reference, you'll benefit from tasks that have been organized more intuitively. And though this book is written primarily for nontechies, in many cases we go just a bit deeper into technology should you desire to delve there.

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.

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're posting topical articles and answering your "Ask the Experts" questions on the website. Lots of aspiring SEO experts just like you visit our site regularly, and consider it one of their most useful bookmarks!

Conventions Used in This Book

If you're dying to do something right now, your enthusiasm is noted and appreciated. Fire up your computer, and we'll be waiting for you on page 1!