Search Engine Optimization

SEO FOR DUMMIES

This is an excerpt of a talk I delivered in January 2013 to a luncheon hosted by the International Public Relations Association and Public Relations Society of America's National Capital Chapter.

Here’s a cold hard fact: If you don’t appear on the first page of Google, you don’t exist.

How do you rectify this? Through the art of “search engine optimization,” or SEO.

SEO is an increasingly convoluted field, but it doesn’t have to be. Let us break down the basics for you. Topics include:

✅ What is “SEO”?
✅ Why does it matter?
✅ How not to do it.
✅ How to do it.
✅ On-page vs. off-page SEO.
✅ What is SEM?
✅ What is SMO?

If SEO has been on your to-do list, but you fear it’s too complicated, then this is the workshop for you.


SEO FOR HEADLINES

It’s one of the 21st century’s truisms that in addition to writing for one’s mom, today’s writer must also write for Google. Yet, as always, the devil’s in the metadata.

The secret of SEO is that every online article requires two headlines: the first is for the wordsmith in you — loaded up with wit, irony, and humor — while the second is for Google — loaded down with straightforward keywords.

We’ll review how the leading websites pull off this balancing act — and how you can, too.

READ MORE ABOUT SEO FOR HEADLINES

📌 How to Make Google Laugh: SEO Your Headlines

📌 When Content Isn’t King: The Importance and Ease of Search Engine Optimization

📌 Why You Should Always Write 2 Headlines