Transcript Best-Kept Secrets for Search Marketing Success Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected].

Best-Kept Secrets for Search
Marketing Success
Stephan Spencer,
Founder & President, Netconcepts
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Advanced SEO: Part Art, Part Science
 Stay tuned for the tools and tactics that most search
agencies won’t reveal…
 These tools and tactics will be broken into three major
categories
– Technical Optimization
– Content Optimization
– Link Building
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Technical Optimization
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Grouped Google Results
 Science:
– Finding the true position of an indented result by appending &num=9 to
the URL of the Google SERP, then &num=8 etc.
– http://searchengineland.com/070705-123736.php
 Art:
– Knocking out your competitor’s indented second listing
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
This isn’t
really #3
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Nope,
not yet
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Gone!
It’s true
position
was #9
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
SEO the
title of #12
to bump it
up to page
1 – it will be
grouped to
#2. Then
link to #11
and bump it
up to page
1 to knock
#4 to page 2
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Indexation
 Science:
– Essential tools: Yahoo Site Explorer, Netconcepts URL Checker,
Netconcepts Product Page Checker
(www.netconcepts.com/productcheck)
– Set Google preferences to “English Only” to get a more realistic number,
minus pages not crawled
– XML Sitemaps generators
 Art:
– Figuring out the main indexation threshold for your level of
PageRank/authority
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Results
estimate
decreased
by 2/3rds
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Flowing PageRank
 Science:
–
–
–
–
Using rel=nofollow on low-value internal links
SEOChat PageRank Search tool
SEOChat PageRank Lookup tool
SEO for Firefox tool
 Art:
– Knowing which of your pages to nofollow
– Iterative testing
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
301 Redirects
 Science:
– When moving sites
– For canonicalization
– “Conditional” redirects?
 Art:
– When to use 301 and when to use 404 or 302
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Cloaking
 Science:
– Viewed cloaked content with Google Translate and translate it from
English to English
• http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=en&u=URLGOESHERE&sa=X
&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result
 Art:
– Good cloaking vs bad cloaking
• For bots only, drop tracking tags and other superfluous parameters from the
URLs of your links
• Use “user agent” detection and don’t “noarchive” the pages to obscure what
you’re doing
• http://searchengineland.com/070301-065358.php
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Supplemental Index
 Science:
– Figuring out which pages are and are not in “Supplemental
hell”
• http://www.mapelli.info/tools/supplemental-index-ratio-calculator/
• site:www.xyz.com -allinurl:www.xyz.com
– Popping pages out of supplemental with robots.txt disallow,
rel=nofollow, internal linking, link building
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Duplicate Content
 Science:
– Scanning for duplicate content
– Blocking duplicate content without blackholing the PageRank (i.e.
disallowing with rel=nofollow)
– If using tracking parameters in URLs, use 301 redirects or JavaScript
– http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/444/SEO-The-DuplicateContent-Penalty/
 Art:
– Augment and/or revise duplicate content with APIs, unique
titles/metadata,
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
CSS
 Science:
–
–
–
–
Reordering content above navigation
Image replacement technique
Progressive enhancement for Flash & AJAX
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/251/SEOHarness-the-Power-of-CSS/
 Art:
– Design worthy of CSS Zen Garden
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Content Optimization
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Keyword Research
 Science:
– Mastering tools such as KeywordDiscovery, Google Suggest,
Spyfu,WordTracker, Google Trends, Googspy, SEOSleuth,
Yahoosearchranking.com
 Art:
– Working in misspellings without looking stupid
– Thinking like a thesaurus - finding related words that machines can’t
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Keyword Density/Prominence
 Science:
– Ranks.nl
 Art:
– Increasing keyword density and prominence in a way that
looks natural to the engines and reads well
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
“Thin Slicing”
 Science:
– Mass edit admin
– Mechanical Turk
 Art:
– Separating the wheat from the chaff
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Link Building
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Reverse Engineer Competitors
 Science:
– Yahoo Site Explorer
– link: on Google & on Google Blog Search
– Backlink Analyzer or Neat-o tool
 Art:
– Negotiating links from the same sites
– Outing competitors’ dodgy link schemes
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
High-Value Link Targets
 Science:
– Build spiders to find sites with super high PageRank, 1 click away from Google,
.edu or .gov, high Alexa ranked
– Avoiding situations that erode the value (e.g. reciprocal, in footer, site-wide,
adjacent to paid links, too many links on page)
– Use tools like SEOMoz Page Strength tool, SEO for Firefox, SEO-Links Firefox
extension
 Art:
– Identifying sites with a propensity to give link love (e.g. acknowledging
patrons/sponsors)
– Crafting approaches & incentives
– Buy them
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Mining Your Own Links
 Science:
– Locating inbound links with poor anchor text with BLA or
Neat-o
 Art:
– Negotiating with these linkers to change the anchor text. Pull
some favors with friends who link to you. It helps to be a
blogger when reaching out to other bloggers.
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Wikipedia
 Science:
– Wikiscanner
– Article monitoring (e.g. trackengine, changenotes, urlywarning,
changedetect, watch function)
– Building up a long & virtuous contribution history
– Flowing pagerank internally with Disambiguation pages, Redirects,
Categories
 Art:
– Negotiating with an article’s “owner”
– Making friends who will back you up in AfDs
– Earning Barnstar awards & adminship status
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Digg
 Science:
– Stripping away all commercial links during the initial Digg swarm
– Friending popular Diggers
– Timing your presence on the Digg front page for daylight hours
 Art:
– Crafting a killer title
– Getting a powerful Digger to submit your story
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
YouTube
 Science:
–
–
–
–
Proper formatting
Tagging
Title and description
Channels
 Art:
– Entertainment value
– Finding that viral hook
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
MySpace
 Science:
– Configuration of your profile and page (e.g. profile type)
– Establishing critical mass with #s of Friends by targeting bands
 Art:
– Getting your brand in the URL
– Creating a viral MySpace avatar, comment graphic, layout etc.
– Having a profile layout that differentiates you without killing usability
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Flickr
 Science:
–
–
–
–
–
Tagging
Title and description
Albums / photosets
Creative Commons licensing
Commenting (note: links in comments no longer pass juice)
 Art:
– Photo quality
– Viral hook
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Blogs
 Science:
– Knowing which blogs pass PageRank to commenters (e.g. Mark Cuban’s)
– Decoupling your blog’s title tags from the post titles (e.g. “SEO Title Tag”
WordPress plugin)
– Using “Sticky” posts to improve keyword prominence on your blog
 Art:
– Courting bloggers
– Commenting in ways that add to the conversation so they get approved
and stay
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
More SEO Tools
 For link analysis and PageRank
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–
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–
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TouchGraph
Live PageRank
WebmasterEyes
Google Webmaster Central
Thumbshots Ranking tool
SEOpen
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
More SEO Tools
 Technical optimization
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User Agent Switcher
SwitchProxy
Scrutinizer
Copyscape
Poodle Predictor
Xenu Link Sleuth
Robot Replay
CrazyEgg
What’s That Site Running
Wayback Machine
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
More SEO Tools
 Other reporting
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Alexa
DigitalPoint Keyword Rankings
Urltrends
Hitwise ($$)
 List and links at
– www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/368/SEO-Toolkit/
– www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/176/SEO:-Tools-for-Link-Building/
© 2008 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, email [email protected] or give
me your business card
 Any questions come to you later, contact me:
[email protected]
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]