Transcript SEO: From Soup to Nuts presented by Stephan Spencer, Founder, President & CEO Netconcepts © 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected].

SEO: From Soup to Nuts
presented by Stephan Spencer,
Founder, President & CEO
Netconcepts
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Search Engine Marketing
 SEO – influence rankings in
the “natural” (a.k.a. “organic”,
a.k.a. “algorithmic”) search
results.
 PPC – paid search advertising
on a pay-per-click basis. The
more you pay, the higher your
placement. Stop paying = stop
receiving traffic.
Search
Engine
Optimization
(SEO)
SEM
Paid
Placement
(PPC/PPA)
Paid
Inclusion (PI)
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO is NOT Paid Advertising
 Highly competitive
 Can’t buy your way in … earn it
 Requires an investment
– Time
– Education
– Resources
Read: “SEO Is Not Free” - www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629756
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Search Engine Optimization
 86% of clicks on Google are from organic search, 14% from
paid search. (Source: beussery.com, 2/1/2008)
 Delivers qualified leads
– Fundamentally different than traditional marketing / advertising
– Searchers are looking for you
– More & more offline sales carry an online element
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Natural vs. Paid
Natural
Paid
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Listings – Your Virtual Sales
Force
 Savvy retailers making 6-7 figures a month from natural
listings.
 Savvy MFA (Made for AdSense) site owners making 5-6
figures per month.
 Most sites are not SE-friendly
 Google friendliness = friendly to other engines
 First calculate your missed opportunities
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Not doing SEO? You’re Leaving Money
on the Table
 Calculate the missed opportunity cost of not ranking well for
products & services that you offer?
# of people
engine
average
expected average
searching for x share
x click- x conversion x transaction
your
(Google =
amount
through
rate
keywords
70%)
rate
 E.g.10,000/day x 70% x 10% x 5% x $100 = $3,500/day
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Most Important Search Engines
 Google (also powers AOL Search, Netscape.com, iWon,
etc.) – 70.77% market share
 Yahoo! (also powers Alltheweb, AltaVista, Hotbot, Lycos,
CNN, A9) – 18.65%
 Live Search (formerly MSN Search) – 4.18%
 Ask – 3.53%
(Market share source: Hitwise, July 2008)
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
What Are Searchers Looking For?
 Keyword Research
– “Target the wrong keywords & all your efforts will be in vain.”
 The “right” keywords are …
– Relevant to your business
– Popular with searchers
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Keyword Research
 Tools for brainstorming a seed list
– Quintura
– Google Suggest (now integrated into Google search)
– Yahoo Assist
 Tools to check popularity of keyword searches
–
–
–
–
–
Wordtracker
Trellian’s Keyword Discovery
Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool
Google Trends
Google Insights for Search
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Quintura
 Click on terms
on the left to
realign the
data.
 Shows
relations of
terms &
website
related results.
www.quintura.com
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Quintura
 Pros
– Free!
– Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (including all
searches on Yahoo!).
– Provides a visual representation
 Cons
– No quantifiable data
– Interconnections & relations may not be relevant
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Suggest
 Originally a separate
testing lab in beta,
rolled into web search
August 2008.
 Shows number of
competing results on
right.
 Search volume inferred
based on order, but no
quantifiable value.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Suggest
 Pros
– Free!
– Data is from Google search data
– Provides live suggestions as you type
 Cons
– No quantifiable data
– Based on typing order
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Yahoo Assist
 Part of Yahoo Search
 Kicks in when delay while entering search phrases
 Word can match any part of search phrase
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Yahoo Assist
 Pros
–
–
–
–
Free!
Data is from Yahoo search data
Provides live suggestions as you type
Typed phrases can match anywhere within the suggestions
 Cons
– No quantifiable data
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Wordtracker
 Enter in keywords & search
phrases to be expound upon.
 Build out a project with
relevant terms.
 Use for brainstorming as well
as drilling down into specific
phrases.
 Obtain quantifiable search
numbers.
Free version: freekeywords.wordtracker.com
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Wordtracker
 Pros
– Based on last 130 days worth of searches
– Singular vs. plural, misspellings, verb tenses all separated out
– Advanced functionality: keyword “projects”, import data into Excel,
synonyms, …
 Cons
– Requires subscription fee ($59/month or $329/year)
– Data is from a small sample of Internet searches (from the minor search
engines Dogpile and MetaCrawler).
– Contains bogus data from automated searches
– No historical archives
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Keyword Discovery
 Similar features
as Wordtracker.
 Trend graphs
provide a visual
that goes
beyond total
searches.
 Various settings
to refine data.
 Note: plural
setting only
pluralizes the
last word.
Free version: www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Keyword Discovery
 Pros
–
–
–
–
–
Full year of historical archives
Data is from a larger sample of Internet searches
Singular vs. plural, misspellings, verb tenses all separated out
Can segment by country
Advanced functionality: keyword “projects”, import data into Excel,
synonyms, …
 Cons
– Access to the historical data requires subscription fee ($69.95/month or
$599.40/year).
– Contains bogus data from automated searches
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
 Enter in lists of
terms.
 Pull terms from a
web page.
 Search volume
– Switch to Exact match
– Show Search Volume
Trends column.
Free version: adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
 Pros
–
–
–
–
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–
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Free!
Accessing within Google AdWords yields more features
Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google)
Singular vs. plural, misspellings, verb tenses
Can segment by country (within AdWords)
Synonyms
Monthly & average search volumes
 Cons
– Numbers are approximations
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Trends
 Provides a
graphical,
relative search
volume
comparison.
 Enter in up to 5
search terms.
 Shows related
news.
 Sign-in to get
relative ranking.
www.google.com/trends
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Trends
 Pros
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Free!
Signing into Google account provides additional detail & features
Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google)
Shows related news searches
Can segment by region or subregion
Filter by time frame
Can run against websites as well
 Cons
–
–
–
–
Numbers are purely relational to the query set
No way to export
Only preset data filtering
Limited to broad, popular search phrases
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Insights
for Search
 Similar to Google Trends
 Additional unique features
– Compare against a category
– Geographic search volume maps
– Provides a relative index measure
against all searches performed on
Google over time.
www.google.com/insights/search/
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Insights for Search
 Pros
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Free!
Signing into Google account provides additional detail & features
Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google)
Shows related news searches
Shows top searches
Show rising search phrases
Can segment by region & subregion
Filter by time frame, even custom date ranges
Export as CSV
 Cons
– Numbers are a normalized index
– Limited to broad, popular search phrases
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Keyword Research
 Competition for that keyword should also be considered
– Calculate KEI Score (Keyword Effectiveness Indicator) = ratio of
searches over number of pages in search results.
– The higher the KEI Score, the more attractive the keyword is to
target (assuming it’s relevant to your business).
– Perform advanced searches to determine difficulty
• “digital cameras”
• intitle:“digital cameras”
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO is a Moving Target
 Lots of change, all the time …
– Personalization & customization
– Vertical search services (Images, Video, News, Maps, etc.)
– “Universal Search”
 Fortunately, the tried-and-true tactics still work …
–
–
–
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–
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Topically relevant links from important sites
Anchor text
Keyword-rich title tags
Keyword-rich content
Internal hierarchical linking structure
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Seven Steps to High Rankings
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
2) Get Your Pages Visible
3) Build Links & PageRank
4) Leverage Your PageRank
4) Encourage Clickthrough
6) Track the Right Metrics
7) Follow Best Practices
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
 Pages can’t rank if they aren’t indexed
 The better your PageRank, the deeper & more often your
site will be crawled by Google.
 Indexation challenges typically stem from:
–
–
–
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Overly-complex URLs
Content duplication
Cannibalization
Non-canonicalization (www vs. non-www)
 Indexation … too much, or not enough?
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Control What Should & Shouldn’t Be
 Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, & include non-indexed
pages (e.g. ones with no title or snippet).
 Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of redirects used,
requiring cookies, etc.) can kill indexation.
 Utilize XML sitemaps to help indexation & overcome crawling
hurdles.
 Make sure your “404 File Not Found” page returns a hard 404
header status code.
 Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing your
URLs, eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects
when needed, & CSS styling for printer friendly.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Complexities Can Kill the Crawl
 Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they
fear “spider traps.”
 Avoid:
– stop characters (?, &, =), ‘cgi-bin’
– session IDs or long numerical strings that might appear
like a session ID.
– unnecessary variables in your URLs, tracking
parameters.
– frames
– redirects
– pop-ups
– navigation in Flash/Java/JavaScript/pulldown boxes
– If not feasible due to platform constraints, can be easily
handled through proxy technology (e.g., Netconcepts’
GravityStream).
Tips:
-Pass parameters via cookies
-Append tracking parameters as a
named anchor using “#” instead of
“?” E.g., rather than tracking like
?nav=footer use #nav=footer.
-Use CSS & HTML for dropdown
menus, only relying on JavaScript for
the interactivity.
- Use hyphens to separate words
instead of underscores.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Avoid Complex URLs
 May inhibit or even prevent
crawling.
 Watch PageRank, check
cache & indexation of URLs
to determine where issues
may lie.
One click in and cached: www.cdw.com/shop/search/hub.aspx?wclss=C
Two clicks, not cached:
www.cdw.com/shop/search/hub.aspx?wclss=C3&cm_re=HubPA-_-Computers-_-notebook+computers+hub
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Canonicalization
 One source – one destination
 At its simplest, refers to the
homepage. Example:
– qvc.com
– www.qvc.com
 Relates to any content
duplication.
 “Canonical” tag can help
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
1 Is the Loneliest Number
 How many URLs (not pages) does your site have?
– site:www.domain.com
– Append to Google search query: &filter=0 to include more:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.netconcepts.com&filter=0
– Use Webmaster Central Sitemaps reporting
– Crawl your own site (Xenu Link Sleuth)
– Compare the counts
 More than 1 but less than infinity …
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
But 2 Isn’t Much Better
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Robots.txt
 Protocol for blocking bots
–
–
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Keep them out of specific sections
Help avoid duplicate content
Auto-discovery of XML sitemap
Done wrong, can block bots from entire site
Unfortunately, too often, implemented incorrectly
Tip: This will block all bots from your entire site
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Are you sure that’s what you want?
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Infinite URL Bloat
 Infinite URL
combinations due to:
–
–
–
–
Pagination
Sorting
Filtering
Display options
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/LCD-Plasma-TVs/sem/rpsm/catOid/12869/N/20012866+20012867+20012869+4589+40001426/link/ref/Ns/accm_num_unts_sld|1/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/LCD-Plasma-TVs/sem/rpsm/catOid/12869/N/20012866+20012867+20012869+40001426+4589/link/ref/Ns/accm_num_unts_sld|1/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
XML Sitemaps
 Inform the search engines of
your pages.
– Auto-discovery through
robots.txt.
– Google Webmaster Central
– Yahoo Site Explorer
– MSN / Live Webmaster Center
 Not a solution for bad URLs
 Google’s reporting of indexed
URLs compared to total
URLs submitted may be an
indicator of URL or content
quality.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
2) Get Your Pages Visible
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100+ “signals” that influence ranking
“Title tag” is the most important copy “on the page”
Home page is the most important page of a site
Every page of a site has a “song” (keyword theme)
Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 &
H2 tags), alt attributes, & high up in the page (where they’re given
more “weight”).
Eliminate extraneous HTML code
“Meta tags” are not a magic bullet
Have text for navigation, not graphics
Don’t let whizz-bang, oh-ah bring you down
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Meaningful Titles
 Keyword-rich, without
being spammy.
 Lead with most important
keywords.
 Looks good to humans &
bots.
Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital
Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ
 DPReview.com
– #1 for: digital camera
– #1 for: digital cameras
– Page-1 in Google for all
phrase variations within title.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Not So Meaningful Titles
 Not changing
titles is a wasted
opportunity.
 Check your own
site for this costly
mistake.
site:www.domain.com intitle:“Untitled Document”
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Duplicate Title Tags
 Check for duplication
– Use special queries with
Google to find duplication.
– Over 9,000 duplicates of this
title alone … what does it say
to Google?
• Purely duplicate titles
• Canonicalization
• Parameters & URL bloat
site:www.officedepot.com intitle:"Office Supplies: Office Products and Office Furniture: Office Depot"
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Helps Find Duplication
 Google’s Webmaster Central
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Alerted to duplicate titles
XML sitemaps
Identify issues
External links
Crawl rate
Search phrases
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Wasted Opportunity
 No keyword value, aside from brand
– Key products?
– Solutions?
– Famous taglines?
Lenovo select a country/region
• Just do it
• Dude, you’re getting a Dell
Lenovo United States
• Quicker picker upper
• Nothing runs like a Deere
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Lucky Position
 Rare to see a result
without the search
phrase within the title.
 Strong enough brand
presence:
– Enough on-site
reinforcement.
– Strong enough &
relevant in-bound
linkage.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Visually Appealing to Humans
 Textual body copy
 Textual navigation &
links.
 Doesn’t mean a site
can’t be visually
appealing.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Textually Appealing to Bots (& humans)
 Check for text vs.
images:
– Select individual text
– Ctrl-A to select all
– View “text only”
version in Google
cache.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
But Visual Appeal Carries a Cost
With images turned off:
– No body copy
– Minimal anchor text links
– And not to main product pages
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
The Cost of Natural Search Loss
 Google’s text-only cache
tells it all:
– No body copy
– Minimal anchor text links
– No links to main product pages
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Meta Tags No Magic Bullet
 Meta descriptions
are somewhat
important, but only
for clickthrough.
 Meta keywords –
ignored by Google
& MSN/Live, no
discernable value
in Yahoo or Ask.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Code Bloat – More Code Than Copy
 Tables-based
layouts vs. tableless & CSS.
 Inline & embedded
CSS vs. external.
 Embedded
JavaScript vs.
external.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Beware the Whizz Bang
 Further you move from pure
HTML, the greater the risks of
stopping the bots, or even
turning away the humans.
– JavaScript powered dropdown
navigations.
– AJAX interactivity
– Flash
 Progressive enhancement –
start with the lowest common
denominator, then layer on
the effects.
This Nokia page may still be loading …
I couldn’t stand waiting to find out.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Use JavaScript for Enhancement
 Problem when JavaScript
doesn’t enhance the
experience, but controls
the experience.
With JavaScript
– May stop bots & humans in
their tracks.
– Unpredictable userexperience.
– Forget screen readers Without JavaScript
– Mobile usage questionable
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Accessibility & SEO – Hand-in-Hand
 Bots experience the same
challenges of accessibility.
– Blind users
– Motor-skills challenged
But also “everyday” users
– Tiny screens
– Mobile browsers – iPhone
experience is not typical.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Flash – Doesn’t Do It
 Flash front doors, splash
screens, & Flash-based
sites.
– May stop bots & humans in
their tracks.
– Unpredictable userexperience.
– Forget screen readers
– Unlikely mobile usage
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
3) Build Links & PageRank
 “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings
 PageRank – Links from “important” sites have more impact on
your Google rankings (weighted link popularity).
 Google offers a window into your PageRank
– PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com)
– Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages
– 3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” & “PageRank
Search.”
 Live Search and Yahoo have similar measures to PageRank
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
10 Google
PageRank 101
Sampling of Homepage
PageRank Ratings
 Logarithmic scale from 0 to 10
 Assigned to web pages, not
sites
 Based on inbound links to
pages
 Heavily weighted on link quality
 Passed through internal &
external links.
 Higher PageRank may lead
Googlebot to:
– Crawl more frequently
– Crawl faster
– Crawl deeper
Amazon
9
8
E
F
7
6
5
F
O
R
T
4
0
1
2
3
ebay
Relative number of pages with PR rating
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Disney
Gap
Culligan
Boston
Store
Google Toolbar
 View PageRank
of current page,
once turned on.
 Available for:
– Firefox
– Internet
Explorer
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Directory
 Pulls from DMOZ
 Ordered by
Google’s
PageRank.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO Chat PageRank Search
 Allows Google
search with ranking
by PageRank:
– Regular searches
– Advanced query
searches
• site:
• link:
• intitle:
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Building High Quality Links
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Develop great content
Submit to authoritative, topical, & local directories
Work with your business partners
Link bait
Tap into social media
Blogging
Press releases
Syndicate through RSS
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
4) Leverage Your PageRank
 Your homepage’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep
pages by virtue of your hierarchical internal linking structure
(e.g. breadcrumb navigation).
 Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink (“Google
bombing”).
 Utilize rel=“nofollow” internally, but with care
 Don’t hoard your PageRank
 Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Avoid PageRank Dilution
 Many of the structural issues that impact indexation, can
impact PageRank.
– Canonicalization (www.domain.com vs. domain.com)
– Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes, superfluous
parameters).
– In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs (with ?,
&, and = characters) because of “spider traps.”
• Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a hosted proxy
service (e.g., GravityStream).
Read: catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Even You Know Who Struggles
 1 product
 5 different URLs
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Diluting PageRank
Duplicated content
Self-competing, cannibalizing
Diluted crawl equity
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
5) Encourage Clickthrough
 Being on top of search results commands attention. It’s an
implied endorsement.
 Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural results &
paid results.
 Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action & value
proposition in your descriptions.
 Your title tag is critical
 Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence
what’s displayed here.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Power of Position
 Where do searchers look?
– Enquiro, Did-it Eyetools
study.
– Golden Triangle or “F” shape
 Focus on
– Natural search vs. Paid
– Above the fold
– Reinforcement based on
search term presence.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Do You Sing in Search?
 Getting there is only
half the battle.
– Do titles captivate?
– Does the
description
reinforce the search
terms?
– Does the
description call the
searcher to action,
leading to
clickthrough?
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
6) Track the Right Metrics
 Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site indexed, % of
product inventory indexed, # of “fresh pages.”
 Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 - 10)
 Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized) rankings
 Keyword popularity: # of searches, competition, KEI
(Keyword Effectiveness Indicator) scores.
 Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per lead
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Google Analytics
 Free!
 Connects with your AdWords
campaigns.
 Wealth of data
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Keywords driving traffic
Top landing pages
Referring sites
Slice & dice, drill down
 Start small. Pick a couple
things to watch, then dig in &
try to make sense of it.
 Understand … analytics is
less about answers, & more
about questions.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO Metrics
 Go beyond rankings, referrals, conversions, and revenue.
Also beyond indexation, link popularity, keyword popularity,
KEI, PageRank (mozRank & mozTrust!)
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO Metrics
 Page yield – % of unique pages yielding search enginedelivered traffic in a given month
 Keyword yield – ratio of keywords to pages yielding search
traffic
 Brand-to-nonbrand ratio – % of search traffic coming from
brand keywords vs. nonbrand keywords
 Unique pages – non-duplicate pages crawled
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Page Yield &
Keyword Yield
Sample KPIs
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO Metrics
 Visitors per keyword – ratio of search engine delivered
visitors to search terms
 Index-to-crawl ratio – ratio of pages indexed to unique
crawled pages
 Engine yield – how much traffic the engine delivers for
every page it crawls
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO Metrics
 From Enquisite...
– Top converting/performing page 2 ranked pages
– Top converting/performing keywords on one engine that are nonperforming on another
– Highest potential keywords you’re getting traffic for
– Highest potential keywords you’re not getting traffic for, based on
potential referrals, revenue, and ROI
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Rankings and
search referrals –
According to
Enquisite
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Rankings and
search referrals –
According to
Enquisite
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite’s
Campaign beta
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite’s
Campaign beta
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite’s
Campaign beta
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite’s
Campaign beta
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Enquisite’s
Campaign beta
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
7) Follow Best Practices
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Target relevant keywords
Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages
Create useful content
Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize content
Links should be relevant (no scheming!)
Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s guidelines
And sometimes the best practices are just avoiding the
worst practices …
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Spamming in Its Many Forms …
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Hidden or small text
Keyword stuffing
Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords
Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep submitting
Competitor names in meta tags
Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes
Spamglish
Machine generated content
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Spamming in Its Darker Forms …
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Pagejacking
Doorway pages
Cloaking
Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link farms
Buying up expired domains with high PageRanks
Scraping
Splogging (spam blogging)
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Doorway Page Example
 BMW.de hosted many
doorway pages like this one,
with lots of keyword stuffed
text for search engine
spiders …
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Doorway Page Example
 Which used a sneaky
redirect to send human
searchers to this page.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings
Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash intros
Title tags the same across the site
Error pages in the search results (e.g., “Session expired”)
"Click here" links
Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles
Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load
balancing).
 Content too many levels deep
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© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
What Next? Conduct an SEO Audit!
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Is your site fully indexed?
Are your pages fully optimized?
Could you be acquiring more PageRank?
Are you spending your PageRank wisely?
Are you maximizing your clickthrough rates?
Are you measuring the right things?
Are you applying “best practices” in SEO & avoiding all the
“worst practices?”
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Social Media Optimization
Leveraging Social Media
to Create Buzz and Links
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Social Media Optimization
 Every social site has its own unique opportunities, quirks
and anomalies.
 You can think of these as “hacks”
 O’Reilly definition of “hacks”:
– tools, tips, and tricks that help users solve problems
– aimed at intermediate-level power users
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Wikipedia
 Build up your street cred (long & virtuous contribution history, user profile page with
Barnstar awards) before doing anything at all self-serving.
 A link on a high-profile article is worth gold, as it builds your credibility & visibility
with journalists and bloggers. Negotiate with an article’s “owner” to get this.
 Monitor your articles with a tool that emails you (e.g. trackengine, changenotes,
urlywarning, changedetect). Don’t just rely on Wikipedia’s “Watch” function
 Flow PageRank internally with Disambiguation pages, Redirects, Categories
 Make friends. They will back you up in AfDs
 Don’t edit anonymously from work. (Have you heard of WikiScanner??)
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Wikis
 Plenty of other wikis out there that are a lot more editfriendly than Wikipedia
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ShopWiki
The NewPR Wiki (thenewpr.com)
WordPress Codex (http://codex.wordpress.org)
Conference wikis (e.g. Web20Expo)
 Some even pass link juice! 
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Digg
 Strip away all commercial links during the initial Digg swarm
 Friend popular Diggers. Better yet, get a popular Digger to submit
your story.
– Consult the Top 100 list of Diggers at DiggAnalytics.com
 Time your presence on the Digg front page for daylight hours
 Craft a killer title using this formula from Muhammad Saleem: number
+ adjective + key phrase
– E.g. “13 Most Chilling Haunted Hotels” or “16 Incredibly Unconventional Hotel
Rooms”
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
StumbleUpon
 Force your friends to stumble your stuff using the “Send to”
function in the StumbleUpon toolbar
– They have to view your URL before they can continue with their
random channel surfing
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
YouTube
 With most popular YouTube promotions, YouTube gets the links and
the original site usually does not. Stack the odds more in your favor
by creating a microsite and making the microsite URL your
username.
– E.g. “willitblend.com” is BlendTec’s username
 Use as many tags as possible while still being accurate
 Run a contest and recruit popular YouTube users to enter. Their
video submission will get pushed out to all their subscribers
– E.g. Intuit’s “Tax Rap” contest
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
YouTube
 Be creative but unpolished
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Eepybird’s Bellagio Fountain of Diet Coke + Mentos
BlendTec’s “Will It Blend?”
Heroes spoof commercial (“Zeroes”) – an NBC creation
John Cleese Backup Trauma webisode
Intuit’s “Tax Rap” content
SolarDave’s SMX spoof with cut-out figures as the actors
“Hat Swap” spoof of “Wife Swap” reality show w/ SEOs
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
MySpace
 You need an impressive number of friends. Establish critical mass by
friending bands, models (male and female), fiction authors, actors,
go-go dancers, DJs, etc. They’ll take anybody!
– Find them using the “Search Profiles for People with Similar Career Interests”
as part of MySpace’s Search function.
– Then remove them later on when you no longer need them.
 Long page load time will drive your profile visitors away. Disable
HTML in your comments so users can’t fill your page with slowloading pictures of LOLcats etc.
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
LinkedIn
 Add links to your website, blog, and one other
URL and select “Other” so you can specify the
anchor text. Don’t use the pre-selected
categories “My website” etc.
 Add a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) or two to your network.
– i.e. a “promiscuous sneezer” (in Seth Godin-speak)
– Use the TopLinked.com list. e.g. Flip Filipowski
 Add your email address to your “professional headline” so folks 4+ degrees away
don’t have to waste an InMail to contact you
 Post a “question” to LinkedIn Answers that serves your own purposes
– e.g. “We’re looking to hire an SEO analyst and are willing to pay whatever it takes to get
a top-notch person. What job boards do you recommend?”
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Flickr
 Always use tags – as many as possible while still being accurate. Put multiple
word tags in surrounded by quotation marks “”
 Make descriptive titles for your photos
 Create thematic Sets for your photos
 Links on profile, set and collection pages are not nofollowed 
 If the photo is location specific, go into Flickr’s tools and geotag the picture
– Go into the Flickr set tools, and locate the location on the Yahoo! Map, then drag
the picture onto the map to pinpoint its location
 Creative Commons license your photo and put how you want the user to credit
you in your photo’s description
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Meetup.com
 Get involved with local Meetups and get your meetup.com member
profile page linked from the meetup’s page, which will pass juice to
your profile then on to your site
 Actually there are many social sites with profile pages that pass link
juice...
– http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/22-dofollow-social-media-sitesoffering-profile-links.html
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/22-dofollow-social-media-sitesoffering-profile-links.html
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Blogs
 First, get involved via comments and build rapport
 Careful about making the commenter name keyword-rich
 Comment on blogs that “dofollow” comment links
– e.g. Mark Cuban’s Blogmaverick.com, Rimm-Kaufman Group’s
www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog
 Submit to blog carnivals. Host one (requires that you have a blog).
Start a new one.
– http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/2008/02/blog-carnivals-a-link-buildingsecret-weapon
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Blogs
 Be a contributor to a group blog (e.g. BusinessBlogConsulting.com,
Shop.org Blog)
 Be a guest blogger on someone else’s blog (e.g. TechGazing.com*,
Problogger.net)
 A Tip Jar indicates the blogger is desperate for cash
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Real-World Networking
 Build relationships with bloggers by networking with them at blogger
conferences, unconferences and meetups
 Register and attend conferences that link to their attendees (e.g.
WordCamp, Gnomedex)
 Contribute to conference wikis (where you’ve attended!)
 Give free talks at libraries, campuses (e.g. Stanford TechBriefings)
 Get involved with local Meetups and get your meetup.com member
profile page linked from the meetup’s page, which will pass juice to
your profile then on to your site
 Invite W3C to speak. Get a link to your event on www.w3.org/WAI/
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Twitter
 Create a microsite dedicated to Twitter
– E.g. twitter.zappos.com
 Circumvent spam filters and inbox clutter using direct messages
 Influence the top influencers in your Twitter network by influencing
those in common with you
– Identify the common “friends” with tweetwheel.com
– Send your request as a direct message
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/22-dofollow-social-media-sitesoffering-profile-links.html
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/22-dofollow-social-media-sitesoffering-profile-links.html
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
In Summary
Focus on the right keywords
Focus on site architecture
Have great keyword-rich content
Build links (particularly through link baiting & social media),
and thus your PageRank
 Spend that PageRank wisely within your site
 Measure the right things
 Continually monitor, benchmark, & don’t be afraid to test
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© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Further Reading
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www.stephanspencer.com
www.netconcepts.com/learning-center
blogs.cnet.com/seosearchlight
google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
www.google.com/webmasters
www.ysearchblog.com
blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/default.aspx
www.mattcutts.com/blog
googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com
www.searchengineland.com
www.seomoz.org
www.seroundtable.com
www.naturalsearchblog.com
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Q&A!
 For an ebook on Google power searching, SEO checklists
& worksheets, and audio recording, executive summary &
transcript of an SEO thought leaders teleconference, e-mail
your request to [email protected]
 To contact me: [email protected]
© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]