SEO For Dummies

Book description

Your fully updated guide to search engine optimization

Packed with tips, tricks, and secrets, SEO For Dummies shows you how to create and maintain a website that ranks at the top of search engines and drives high-volume traffic. Using plain-English explanations and easy-to-follow instructions, this friendly guide helps you come to grips with search engine basics—what they are, which ones are important, and how to get started—and build a search-engine-friendly site.

SEO is an integral part of getting a site to rank in the various search engines in order to attract potential customers. In the new edition of this bestselling guide to search engine optimization, you'll learn the ins and outs and best practices of successful SEO in order to make your website content more search-engine friendly so that it ranks higher among searches and draws the masses. Covering the latest information on pay-per-click options, using social media to boost your profile, and managing your platform and reputation to positively impact your search engine rankings, this hands-on guide is the fun and friendly place to start learning how to move your site to the top of the rankings.

  • Develop a search strategy and use local search capabilities
  • Build sites that increase your search visibility
  • Analyze results with updated tracking tools
  • Maximize content marketing strategies

If you're asking yourself the essential question of "how do I get people to visit my site," you've come to the right place!

Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Introduction
      1. About This Book
      2. Foolish Assumptions
      3. Icons Used in This Book
      4. Beyond the Book
    3. Part I: Getting Started with SEO
      1. Chapter 1: Surveying the Search Engine Landscape
        1. Investigating Search Engines and Directories
        2. Where Do People Search?
        3. Search Engine Magic
        4. Gathering Your Tools
      2. Chapter 2: Search Results, Deconstructed
        1. The Big Two: Organic and PPC
        2. Looking at Local Results
        3. Checking Out Shopping Results
        4. Staying Current with News Results
        5. Viewing Video and Image Results
        6. Getting Friendly with Social Results
        7. Collecting Bits n’ Pieces
      3. Chapter 3: Your One-Hour, Search Engine–Friendly Web Site Makeover
        1. Is Your Site Indexed?
        2. Taking Action If You’re Not Listed
        3. Picking Good Keywords
        4. Examining Your Pages
        5. Getting Your Site Indexed
      4. Chapter 4: Beating the Competition — Planning a Powerful Search Engine Strategy
        1. Don’t Trust Your Web Designer
        2. Understanding the Limitations
        3. Eyeing the Competition
        4. Going Beyond Getting to #1
        5. Controlling Search Engine Variables
        6. Determining Your Plan of Attack
        7. Look Away a Few Minutes
        8. Two Things to Remember
      5. Chapter 5: Making Your Site Useful and Visible
        1. Learning from Amazon
        2. Revealing the Secret But Essential Rule of Web Success
        3. Making Your Site Work Well
        4. Panda — Google Endorses Good Design
        5. Keep It Fresh (Perhaps)
    4. Part II: Building Search Engine-Friendly Sites
      1. Chapter 6: Picking Powerful Keywords
        1. Understanding the Importance of Keywords
        2. Thinking Like Your Prey
        3. Starting Your Keyword Analysis
        4. Using a Keyword Tool
        5. Choosing Your Keywords
      2. Chapter 7: Creating Pages That Search Engines Love
        1. Preparing Your Site
        2. Seeing Through a Search Engine’s Eyes
        3. Understanding Keyword Concepts
        4. Creating Your Web Pages
      3. Chapter 8: Using Structured Data Markup
        1. Creating Rich Snippets
        2. Pick Your Data Format
        3. Providing Knowledge Graph Information
        4. Getting Help
      4. Chapter 9: Avoiding Things That Search Engines Hate
        1. Dealing with Frames
        2. The HTML Nitty-Gritty of Frames
        3. Handling iframes
        4. Fixing Invisible Navigation Systems
        5. Flush the Flash Animation
        6. Waiting for Silverlight (to Disappear)
        7. Avoiding Embedded Text in Images
        8. Reducing the Clutter in Your Web Pages
        9. Managing Dynamic Web Pages
        10. Using Session IDs in URLs
        11. Fixing Bits and Pieces
      5. Chapter 10: Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap
        1. Tricking Search Engines
        2. Concrete Shoes, Cyanide, TNT — An Arsenal for Dirty Deeds
        3. Doorway and Information Pages
        4. Using Redirects and Cloaking
        5. Tricks Versus Strategies
        6. Link Tricks
        7. Paying the Ultimate Penalty
      6. Chapter 11: Bulking Up Your Site — Competing with Content
        1. Creating Content Three Ways
        2. Writing Your Own Stuff
        3. Convincing Someone Else to Write Content
        4. Using OPC (Other People’s Content)
        5. Understanding Copyright — It’s Not Yours!
        6. Hunting for Other People’s Content
        7. A Word about Duplicated Content
      7. Chapter 12: Finding Traffic through Local-Search Marketing
        1. Why You Shouldn’t Skip This Chapter
        2. Understanding Local-Search Marketing’s Importance
        3. Looking through Local Search
        4. How Does Local Search Work?
        5. Two Ways to Reach People Locally
        6. “Localizing” Your Web Pages
        7. Finding More Local Systems
        8. Don’t Forget Local-Local Directories
        9. The Other Side of Local: Review Sites
        10. Working with the Yellow Pages
    5. Part III: Adding Your Site to the Indexes and Directories
      1. Chapter 13: Getting Your Pages into the Search Engines
        1. Linking Your Site for Inclusion
        2. Simple Link Submissions to the Major Systems
        3. Submitting an XML Sitemap
        4. Submitting to Secondary Systems
        5. Using Registration Services and Software Programs
      2. Chapter 14: Submitting to the Directories
        1. Pitting Search Directories Against Search Engines
        2. Why Are Directories So Significant?
        3. Submitting to the Search Directories
        4. Finding Specialized Directories
        5. Using “Local” Directories
      3. Chapter 15: Product Search: Remember the Shopping Directories and Retailers
        1. Understanding Where People Search for Products
        2. Working with the Product Indexes
        3. Exploring More Shopping Services
        4. The Classified-Ad Sites
        5. Working with E-Commerce or Merchant Sites
        6. Managing Your Data
    6. Part IV: After You’ve Submitted Your Site
      1. Chapter 16: Using Link Popularity to Boost Your Position
        1. Why Search Engines Like Links
        2. Understanding Page Value and PageRank
        3. Page Relevance
        4. Hubs and Neighborhoods
        5. Trust in TrustRank
        6. Inserting Keywords into Links
        7. Good Links and Bad
        8. Recognizing Links with No Value
        9. Recalling a Few Basic Rules about Links
      2. Chapter 17: Finding Sites to Link to Yours
        1. Controlling Your Links
        2. Doing a Link Analysis
        3. Generating Links, Step by Step
        4. Be Careful Whom You Link To!
      3. Chapter 18: Even More Great Places to Get Links
        1. Got Content? Syndicate It!
        2. Syndicating Utilities and Infographics
        3. And More Link-Building Ideas …
        4. The nofollow Curse
        5. Who’s Going to Do All This Work?!
      4. Chapter 19: Social Networking — Driven by Drivel
        1. Just What Is Social Networking?
        2. Beware the Social-Networking Hype
        3. The Drivel Factor
        4. The SEO Benefits of Social Networking
        5. The Google+ Factor
        6. Social Networking — A Book in Itself
      5. Chapter 20: Video: Putting Your Best Face Forward
        1. The SEO Benefits of Video
      6. Chapter 21: When Google Bites Back: A Guide to Catastrophe
        1. How, and How Much?
        2. Is It Really a Penalty? A Little Analysis
        3. Pulling It All Together: Have You Been Penalized?
        4. Dealing with Manual Actions
        5. Dealing with “Algorithmic Actions”
        6. Digging Your Way Out of the Hole
    7. Part V: The Part of Tens
      1. Chapter 22: Ten-Plus Myths and Mistakes
        1. Myth: It’s All about Meta Tags and Submissions
        2. Myth: Web Designers and Developers Understand Search Engines
        3. Myth: Multiple Submissions Improve Your Search Position
        4. Mistake: You Don’t Know Your Keywords
        5. Mistake: Too Many Pages with Database Parameters and Session IDs
        6. Mistake: Building the Site and Then Bringing in the SEO Expert
        7. Myth: $25 Can Get Your Site a #1 Position
        8. Myth: Google Partners Get You #1 Positions
        9. Mistake: You Don’t Have Pages Optimized for Specific Keywords
        10. Mistake: Your Pages Are Empty
        11. Myth: Pay Per Click Is Where It’s At
        12. Mistake: Ignoring Site Usability and Aesthetics
        13. Mistake: Believing Everything You Read
      2. Chapter 23: Ten-Plus Ways to Stay Updated
        1. Let Me Help Some More
        2. The Search Engines Themselves
        3. Google’s Webmaster Pages
        4. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
        5. Bing SEO Tips
        6. Matt Cutts
        7. Search Engine Watch
        8. The Official Google Webmaster Help Group
        9. Moz
        10. WebMaster World
        11. HighRankings.com
      3. Chapter 24: Ten-Plus Useful Things to Know
        1. Managing Sitelinks (Multiline Search Results)
        2. Adding a Search Box and Your Site Name
        3. Checking Your Site Rank
        4. Ranking Images
        5. Checking for Broken Links
        6. Assessing Traffic with the Alexa Toolbar
        7. Installing a Code Reviewer
        8. Finding Your Keyword Density
        9. Analyzing Your Site’s Traffic
        10. Tracking Phone Calls
        11. Checking for Duplication and Theft
        12. Using 301 Redirects
        13. Getting Multiple Results on the Search Results Page
        14. You Need an Attractive Site
        15. Finding More SEO Tools
        16. Fixing Your Reputation
    8. About the Author
    9. Cheat Sheet
    10. Advertisement Page
    11. Connect with Dummies
    12. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: SEO For Dummies
  • Author(s): Peter Kent
  • Release date: October 2015
  • Publisher(s): For Dummies
  • ISBN: 9781119129554