Conference Buddies

Some of the best SEOs in the game will be on this panel. This is an expert-level session. There will be brief coverage of on-page items such as titles, tags, text and URLs. But the focus will be on the real money of SEO: off-page criteria. Links, links, links.

Moderator: Carolyn Shelby

Speakers:
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc. @BruceClayInc
Scott Polk, Director of Operations, Search & Social Media, LLC @scottpolk
Jill Sampey, Director of Search Marketing, Blast Radius @uberjill
Jill Whalen, CEO, High Rankings @jillwhalen

Bruce Clay:

Key Points to Linking:

• Unidirectional = inbound links
• Direct links = followed
• Aim for supplemental / complementary content sites
• Do NOT go for javascript links
• Do NOT go for flash links (at least not yet)
• Paid Links – should be kept under the radar
• Link life – should be random  (1mo, 1yr, but if all links last exactly 6 months, then must be bought, vary up your footprint). If most of your links last exactly 6 months, then they must be bought, vary up your footprint
• PageRank – should be natural
• Random IP – should be varied
• Link Begging is a waste of time
• 100:1 link magnets vs. link begging (100 more links per hour of work with link magnets)
• Link Magnets – should be content that attracts links
• Social media – indirectly results in links
• International – ccTLD specific links
• Local – local region specific links
• Sequence matters – First link on that page anchor text counts, text over image – ALT, first counts, nofollow kills target, link stop words (next, back, home).   All other links on the page becomes nofollows.    Robots.txt can disallow iframe or other sections as nofollow.
• Make sure you have the right anchor text first on the page.

Jill Sampey @uberjill

Leveraging current assets

1. Logfiles

• 301/302 strings (find the one that don’t lead to a 200 response)
• 404 Pages
• Links without traffic

2. Optmizing for Conversions

• If it doesn’t convert, you don’t need it – generally ;-)
• Test before optimizing

3. Re-Use Past Sucesses

• Seasonal
• Revolving Product Line
• /2009-Holiday-Specials/   -> Use this instead /Holiday-Specials/
• /Madden08/ /Madden09/  -> Use this Madden-NFL (Archive under this)

Develop New Assets:

1. Listen and Learn

• Set-Up Listening Tool  (radian 6, google alerts, blog search engines, etc.)
• Engage in Industry
• Engage on Brand
• Engage on Competitors

2. Link Opps

• Twitter
• Domains  (buy links, acquire small sites)
• Partnering

3. New Social Strategies

• Off-Site, Unbranded, Comical, Satirical  (create microsite)
• i.e. GetyourBasketBallon.com
• Theleroysmith

Jill Whalen @jillwhalen

Who Checks Rankings?

• Users are served different content depending on some of the following:
• If they’re logged into google/yahoo/msn or not
• Their previous search history
• Their browser settings
• Their location
• Chrome and IE8 – whether or not if they use an incognito window (for less tracking)

What does this mean?

• Everyone sees something different
• Must know your target market
• Cater your site to them
• Go above and beyond others in your niche
• Use analytics
• Learn which words convert
• See where your buyers are located
• Measure success on more targeted visitors and conversions

Misc/Q&A

Bruce:

• If you nofollow 1 URL on a page, and have the URL 5 times, all 5 will automatically be treated with nofollow.   If you have 5 same URLs it will still be in the denominator and lower your score slightly (but not add value).
• First in first out, as encountered by the spider
• You can buy links for traffic / advertising, don’t buy links for SEO
• If you buy a link that is suspect, then all your links may be in jeopardy in being suspect or scrutinized – you’ll lose score and not know it
• Social Media works: The Will It Blend Video using the iPhone, outranked ATT for keyword iPhone