Conference Buddies

Do you have a large site with more than a million pages? If so, you should definitely attend this session. This panel will look at the special issues and challenges surrounding giant sites and discuss some of the greatest practices used by large companies to handle their mega site optimization.

Moderator: Joe Laratro

Speakers:
Matt Craine, VP of Online Media, Catalogs.com @mattcraine
Dan Perry, Director of SEO, Turner Broadcasting @danperry
Catfish Comstock, Senior Search Strategist, BusinessOnLine @SEOCatfish
Melanie Mitchell, SVP of Search Strategy, Digitas @melaniemitchell
Derrick Wheeler, Senior Search Engine Optimization Architect, Microsoft @DerrickWheeler

Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell

Link building, content, on-site, technical

Understand Your Site Strategy

• What are your goals?
• Keyword research – specificity wins
• Create a spreadsheet
  • Keywords
  • Destination URL
  • Avoid page competition

Keyword Research: Most Important Step

• Google Trends
• Adwords Tool
• SEO Book
• MS AdCenter
• Trendistic.com
• Quintara

Get Your Content Crawled and Improve Ranking

• Make sure every page has a link to it
• Clean URLs
• Avoid session IDs and mandatory cookies
• Allow meta content to be managed
• Semantic search

Boost Your Traffic / Ranking

• Organize site in an orderly hierarchy
• Improve page layout
• HTTP Status codes 200 301 302 404 500
• Internal linking
• Back-link Widget
• Make navigation and promotion contextual – Flash and JS are useful to promote unrelated content

Measure Your Performance (Analytics)

• Page views, unique/visits, search referrals
• Track pathing / recirculation
• Understand Keywords & Queries (ie. where are we winning & where are we not)
• Competitive Analysis
• SEO compliance
• Training

Rinse and Repeat (ongoing)

• Site Strategy
• Break out Assets (every content asset needs own page)
• Get content crawled
• Boost ranking
• Measure your performance

Dan Perry @danperry

The larger the company, the less SEO work you do (selling SEO in the company)

Where to Start

• Take stock in yourself
• Introvert vs. Extrovert
• Can you be an SEO evangelist
• Is that something you want to do?   Can’t be an introvert.

Get in the Meetings

• People at all levels need to know you
• Importance to long-term business goals
• Feed off ego

Research the Competition

• Find strengths/weaknesses
• Pain points (the terms the company wants to rank)
• Show opportunities

What’s worked for me

• Departmental training  (80% department data, 20% SEO data)
• Build it into the process
• SEO superstars (recognize and embrace)
• SEO Wiki (internal links to content give to people)
• Take Great Notes

SEO Analogies

• SEO is like Golf: be patient and think long term
• Making a Cake: more like flour rather than icing
• Baseball: requires a team effort

Take Aways:

• Take stock in yourself
• Details are everything
• Own it

Matt Craine @mattcraine

Creating Natural Linkbait

Examples:

• Who What Where When Why?.com (i.e. what do lizards eat)
• Let’s Talk Style (bring bloggers in)
• Content such as, “how to restore mustang”

Creative Linking

Interviews i.e. South Florida Business Journal then press release

Entice Sites & Visitors

Contests ie. Tools for Teaching Contest  (essay from teachers on what they need) .edu teacher websites, etc.  (then press release goes out)

Share with Transparency

• Using Website Optimizer with Google Anlytics – Case Study with Catalogs.com (PR 7 link back from Google’s blog plus thousands of other links)
• Saving $$$ by not relying on PPC or affiliates
• Over 90% of traffic from natural search for catalogs.com

Catfish Comstock @SEOCatfish

Site Wide Optimization Recommendations

• Most site wide issue due to complex, unfriendly CMS systems
• 302 redirects STILL cause problems (can be   – big daddy updates
• 404 pages should be converted to 301 redirects
• Make global navigation or important content is not block by java script or flash (&strip=1 track in Google cache)
• Include rel=canonical on all pages
• Eliminate URL arch that allows for duplicate content
• Use Google Webmaster tools new parameters exclusion feature to acct for tracking URLs or duplicate URL paths

On Page Optimization Recommendations

• Create keyword map to track targets (targets versus keywords)
• Compare the KW map to your current ranking to note disparities
• Auto-populate lower level page titles based on reverse breadcrumb: Product -> Sub-Cat – Cat – Home
• Avoid auto-pop keyword pages, better to leave them blank unless you can ensure each is unique (title of page is relevant for internal linking)
• Include “long tail words” in your optimization whenever possible.
• Look for patterns in keyword data that you can exploit.

Off Page Optimization – Internal Linking Recommendations

• Check navigation template using FirstLinkChecker.com  (only first link counts)
• Ensure your global navigation structure is KW focused (a link is a vote)
• Image based navigation (alt tag 4 to 7 words) can be very effective
• Have a usability professional review your information architecture
• Internally link blog content to relevant pages within the main content section of the site
• Internally link from blog content to main product and services pages
• Most recent and also most popular posts (links from other blog pages)

Off Page Optimization – External Linking Recommendations

• Evaluation all business partners for link opportunity
• Search for unlinked mentions and contact for potential links
• Your blog is a great link acquisition tool
• Leverage social media to promote blog
• 404 and 302 converted to 301

Data Analysis Optimization Recommendations

• Track micro-conversions and have a well defined conversion funnel
• Measure long tail success
• Check www.catfish.cc for Excel Example
• Separate Keywords into groups for conversion analysis: company | brand | general 1,  etc.
• Integrate analytics with your CRM tools
• Tie acquisition cost to lifetime value of customer in order to justify larger Ad spend
• Leverage view through data to understand multi-click attribution: businessol.com/forms/view-through-gaining-insight-data
• How many conversions came from social media?
• Measure long tail success, download excel template example from: www.catfish.cc

Derrick Wheeler @DerrickWheeler

SEO is the process of influencing the Structure content and authority of a website to increase the number of rankings and improve the quality

The hardest part about SEO at Microsoft, was to get it implemented.  After SEO recommendations, not enough budget to allocate for SEO implementation.

Microsoft.com is a collection of thousands of “websites” that share one domain name

• Microsoft has 1.2 Million URLs
• Each website impacts all of the other websites’ success
• Websites are managed individually
• Websites are published using various content management systems
• Legacy SEO Barrier Reduction
• Ongoing process utilizing FAST crawler technology

Top 5 Barriers:

1. Duplicate and undesirable pages
2. Excessive use of redirects  (office.microsoft.com, fetch URLs)
3. Improper error handling
4. International URL Structure
5. Low quality page titles and meta tags

Engage with “violators” to reduce barriers, enable work-arounds, implement Big/quick wins, and/or on-board to our Site-specific programs

Excel

• Organize in Excel
• URLs total, URLs crawled,  total redirects, 404, 301, 302 200

Preventative

Include SEO at Level1. Standard Int’l URL structure for websites built and managed in CSP

SEO integration with CSP

• Include new SEO guidance into CSP developer guide
• Auto validation of SEO rules
• XML sitemap

Consistent URL structure

Site-Sec SEO Program Phrases

1. Business outcomes and metrics
2. Keyword research and selection
3. Structural and technical audit
4. Content editing for keyword intent
5. Link building strategies and tactics
6. Ongoing optimization

Measure Goals

A single source of data

SE -> Paid or Org -> KW Phrase -> Entry URL -> Visits -> Path of Pagview -> Success Events

Final Points

• Content is NOT king/queen in Mega SEO, it’s a prince/princess
• Develop an overall SEO approach based on how YOUR organization works
• Define business objective & metrics then implemting your measurement plan FIRST
• Choose your battles, don’t sweat the small stuff
• Let co-workers & partners be wrong sometimes
• Don’t be afraid to say NO to low-priority projects
• Teach others to Advocate for SEO in every meeting for every project that impacts any web page that links to, redirects to, or lives on your site

This presentation is of a more technical nature looking at site architecture challenges of today’s websites. Discussing what works, what doesn’t and how websites can be geared towards attracting a greater audience, and consequently, greater leads.

Moderator: Christine Churchill

Speakers:
Scott Polk, Director of Operations, Search & Social Media @scottpolk
Ted Ulle, Senior Search Analyst, Converseon, Inc. @TedUlle
Michael Martin, SEO Director of Project Management, Internet Marketing Inc. @googleandblog
Lyndsay Walker, Director of Online Marketing, Canada’s Web Shop @lyndseo

Ted Ulle @TedUlle

Don’t Build a Franken-Site!

Top Priority:

Your Marketing Goals! (even before keyword research)

• Optimize your keyword selection process
• Menu Labels & Navigation
• Content and Sales Copy
• Conversions

Clarity from the start

Marketing Purpose is #1 ALWAYS!

1. Keyword Strategy (user intent, who is your target)
2. Content 1 – can be placeholders (draft content)
3. Information Architecture
4. Back end metrics
5. Content 2 – full copy (final)
6. Graphic Design
7. “Web” Edit – finalize in HTML

Document Every Decision – Align the team

Menus & Navigation

• Menus labels are content
• Where am I?
• What can I do here?
• Single words or longer phrases
• Can be the “call to action”
• Too many choices equals no choice (7 is the limit for the main menu)

Final Web Edit

• Content Interacts with Layout
• CS is web typesetting
• You can kill good content or boost weak content with typography
• Study centuries of knowledge on typesetting

Showing Off

Works against business and marketing

i.e. Graphic Design, Fancy Programming “Features”, AJAX run amok

IT Folks are Writing Copy:

• Search Results
• Error Pages
• Auto Response

Examples of IT writing content:

• Failed Log-in Message “Search produced no results”
• Link for a 6-Figure Software Video “Open Demo” as a starting link
• Yahoo Directory Submission error message “Invalid Payment Instrument Data”

Things will go wrong

Thou Shalt Not Kludge:

• Better Late than Lousy
• Expect to Make trade off
• Keep your priorities straight

Michael Martin @googleandblog

Setting Your SEO Foundation

First Pillar: Canonicalization

• Resolving web content that has more than one possible URL
• You arbitrate to remove confusion from user and search engines
• Purpose is not so much preventing duplicate pages but link dilution
• Choose www or non-www and explicitly go with either
• Resolve default and index pages to the end slash
• Have a uniform link ref internally and externally
• Use 301 redirects

Second Pillar – Robots.txt

• Your site’s ground rules for SE
• Prevent “discoverability” of private pages or section
• Reduce spam
• Reduce bandwidth
• Identify sitemap.xml location

Third Pillar – Webmaster Tools & Center

• Google Webmaster Tools
• Bing Webmaster Center
• Yahoo Site Explorer

Have a Strong “C R We”

Canonical, Robots, Webmaster tools

Lyndsay Walker @lyndseo

Goals

1. Redesign site with minimum Search Engine Optimization wrinkles
2. Redesign with usability in mind
3. Don’t break stuff

Early Considerations

Web Host

• Server location

Server Platform

• Check Current apps and forms

Review the Existing Site

• Create a map of basic navigation
  • Level 1, 2, 3, 4 (use excel)
• Gather some data
  • Use Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Center
  • Check the SERPs for the top ranked pages o key terms
  • Use your Analytics to find top performing pages

Verify Your Redirects

• www or non-www, default home page, etc.

Remap your Navigation

• Organize your content
• Check logs for user and spiders
• Card sorting (use cards to sort your content)

Transition – Card Sorting

• Cards with name of pages, 1 each
• User groups cards based on their perceived logic (by normal, adv, and SEO groups), look for patterns
• Repeat
• Review and look for patterns
• Decide on new navigation

Transition

Determine file names – keep or change, file type, and file naming strategy

• Hyphens vs. Underscores
• Use keyword (but don’t stuff)
• All lowercase

Prepping the New Site

• Custom 404 pages
• Use site template
• Put calls to action on this page!
• Update Robots.txt (what was block before)
• Run a link checker i.e. Xenu

After Launch

• Resubmit Site Maps to Search Engines
• Stalk your analytics!! (track your 404 pages)

Scott Polk @scottpolk

Data Organization

• Treat like database
• Flexible
• Logical
• Familiar

URL Structures

• Theme aligned
• User Exp / Conversion
• Keywords
• 1-2 directories deep max
• Use file extensions

HTML

• Content Stacking
• body, H1, textual content, related links, navigation link/header/footer

Internal Linking Structure

• Links should be related to topic
• Theme aligned
• Anchor text
• Control the flow of link equity (pass to top of theme)
• Technology

Writing a good advertisement is only half of the battle. Once someone is on your site the conversion process must begin immediately. This session will discuss the process of cleaning up your landing pages to make them produce as much as possible.

Moderator: Ken Jurina
Speakers:
Tim Ash, CEO, SiteTuners.com @sitetuners @tim_ash
Brad Geddes, Founder, bgTheory.com @bgtheory
Kate Morris, Founding Demon, Marketing Demons @katemorris
Joanna Lord, CMO, YourJobStop.com @joannalord

Kate Morris @katemorris

The Parts of a Landing Page

• Visual Interest
• Relevant Content
• Call to Action
• Navigation

Example: Bose.com

Call to Action

• Should be above the fold
• Do NOT build a landing page without this
• Keep forms as short as possible

Example: BofA lead gen form

Relevant Content

• Think: What are you advertising?
• Keyword targeted copy and headline
• Don’t use the homepage in ads unless you have ONE product
• People have short attention spans
• Test, Test, Test
• Content and page length should be dependent on the searcher’s intent, give them what they ask for

Bad Example: L.L.Bean. Ad should have landed on the raincoat page.

Visual Interest

• Utilize whitespace
• Embrace simplicity
• Focus on product/service/cross selling

Good Example: Geico landing page, simple and clean
Bad Example: State Farm landing page, has too much info

Navigation

• The two camps
  1. give them a choice
  2. keep them prisoner (not leave)
• Test

Tracking

Never start a campaign without tracking

Conversion Rate

• Over time how may leads/sales happen from the traffic you get
• Benchmark versus other campaigns
• Track your entire sales cycle if possible

Cost Per Conversion

• $5 pro vs. $50K product
• Gauges whether you can afford the campaign/page

Bounce Rate

• About 30% is awesome!
• 50% Good-Okay
• Over 70% – something is wrong – time to test and revise

Eye/Click Tracking

• Who is clicking on what

It’s all relative! Test!

Brad Geddes @bgtheory

Only 10% of queries is transactional, over 80% is informational

Awareness -> Interest -> Learn -> Shop -> Buy = Buy Funnel

Informational Queries:

Example: Candles
Search query on “Candle Burning Times”
You should not land them directly to a shopping page
You should bring them to a Comparison chart, then link to shopping cart

Example: Remodeling
Search query on “Kitchen Remodeling”
You should send to them to About Us page, years in business, customer testimonials OR add these elements to your landing page to build credibility.

Narrow Theme Sites:

Example: Chicago Nanny Services
Take searchers directly to view Chicago Nanny Resumes (because that’s what they are looking for) (for search, but not for banners)
Banners converted better on home page (with certifications and increased trust factor)

Ambiguous Queries:

Complex questions, will stop search i.e. Merchant Accounts, Mortgage Loans, etc.

Example: Mortgage Loans
If you bring the user to the application process directly and the user still has questions, they will leave mid way and finish the form on the website that answers all their questions. i.e. If the form has different options, and the user is unclear they will not finish the form, and finish else where, i.e. What is a 30yr ARM or reverse mortgage?

Chances of dropping off a form:

1 to 5 fields 26%
6 to 10 = 32%
More than 10 fields = 42%

Product Queries:

Example: Samsung DLP TV
The best landing page is to send them to is the Samsung DLP TV Category page (with Top selling options/variations for people that want a Samsung DLP TV but not sure which option or size).

Most people can only hold 5-7 items in short term memory

Too many options is too confusing

Brand Searches

• For PPC, if you pay for it, get value out of it!
• Send searchers for brand terms not to your home page i.e. send them to the what’s new section

Thank You Page

Add suggested products, loyalty program, anything that keeps them engaged with your website

Analytics

• Set up goal funnel visualization
• Monitor bounce rate by landing page
• Find out what are consumers searching for

Joanna Lord @joannalord

50% of companies are still driving traffic to the home page instead of landing pages 75% still have less than 4 landing pages built out
Only 25% of companies are testing landing pages on a regular basis

2 Sides of Advanced Tactics

In-House Tactics:

• Assess & Streamline (streamline every process possible)
• Automate
• Connect multiple Goals
• Landing page templates, CMS, auto-expire pages, preview/Q&A system
• Data collection, auto-remove bad performers

On-Site Tactics:

• Multivariate testing (multi-media attention grabber, dual navigation options, addressing customer concerns, etc.)
• Multi-page pathways

3 Key Points to Landing Pages

1. Anticipate User Flows

• Dual Option Button (pre-page them)
• Multiple Page pathway
• Present same info 2 ways
  Visually/Text
  Standard/Rich Media
  On Site/Downloadable

Example: Vermont Teddy Bear, Monster.com

2. Go Beyond Conversion

• Branding / post- conversion Focus
• Viral/Social Media add-ons
• Interaction/TOS

3. Push Your Testing

• Multi-variate
• Macro summary of data
• Multiple toolsets & integration

Example of tools: SiteSpect, Ominture, WiderFunnel

Main take away:

• Streamline/Automate

We have had two years to adjust to the major search engine results page changes. It is clear those links that searchers first see aren’t at all what they used to be. The SERPs are more complex, and that means optimization is more complex, too. This session will examine search engine results pages with the images, videos, stock quotes, weather and other snippets included, and address the changes that marketers must make.

Moderator: Christine Churchill
Speakers:
Amanda Watlington, Ph.D., Searching for Profit @amandaw
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc. @bruceclayinc
Brian Combs, Principal, ionadas local @BrianPCombs
Scott Polk, Director of Operations, Search & Social Media @scottpolk

Amanda Watlington @amandaw

Clues from News Articles:

• Focus is on scale
• Better local, such as more UK sites in UK results
• Fresher and faster results

Clue 1: Scalability

• More efficient crawling
• Test Scalability: YSlow or other speed tests
• Use robots.txt and parameter handling settings in webmaster tools to avoid duplicate content
• Keep Sitemaps up-to-date

Clue 2: More Localization

• More local results by country
• Claim your push pins through local business center
• Optimize for local searches
• Multi-nationals, now is the time to reconsider how you are going to search market

Clue 3: Fresher Results

• Very rapid indexing is in the future
• Old, unvisited content will not do the trick
• Better, harder working content
• Keep content up to date
• Expire old, dead content
• Mind your link rot
• Look to social media as an adventure for getting marketing results

Clue 4: More Precise Results

• Use experience when searching
• Real long tail queries often are unique
• Head queries are imprecise pizza
• The fat middle is “pizza del las vegas’ chase the more precise results

More Precise Results

• Optimize all kinds of files and watch traffic grow
• Images – avoid dsc10257.jpg, rename it into something more meaningful
• Video – provide complete info, consistent best practices
• Product images and price alone won’t do
• PDF – optimize them fully

Bruce Clay @bruceclayinc

Engagement Objects

• Image Indexing
• Video Content Indexing
• Content is not just text, it’s video, images, maps, etc.

Bruce took a newspaper article, scanned as an image, then put into PDF, now that will rank for works in that image. This means Google now is starting to read text in images.

Bruce took a video, transcribed the audio and put back into the video as a separate audio track. Google has audio indexing, and can pull up the audio where it appears in the track. This means Video content can now rank and add to SEO. This also means you now have to write scripts for video presenters with SEO in mind.

Remember Video is content, therefore you need to optimize content for SEO if you want to rank.

XML Sitemaps for Google

• No XML file for Images
• You can create an XML file for Video
• More info can be found here: http://www.bruceclay.com/newsletter/volume67/xmlsitemaps.html

Key Points:

• Google can scan images and audio for keywords
• Content is not just text, it’s video, audio, images, maps, etc.
• Google is redefining what is content

Brian Combs @BrianPCombs

Google Maps

• Rank higher than natural listings
• Less competitive

Step 1:

• Claim your listings
• Use your keywords and locations within your listing
• Don’t overuse them (penalty)
• P.O. Boxes may be depreciated
• Upload images and/or videos
• Encourage happy clients to write reviews (on google, city search, yelp etc.)
• Tag your business with Google My Maps

Step 2:

• Optimize your Website
• Optimize for locations as well as keywords

Step 3:

• Citation Building
• Citations are similar to links
• Trusted pages that list company name, home number, and address
• Link not required!
• Get listed in major IYPs
• Local directories
• Vertical directories

Google Maps Developments

• 7-Pack listings replaced the 10-Pack
• Cleaned up the interface
• Provides space for local listing ads (current testing in 2 markets SF and San Diego)
• Still lots of bugs
• Implied local intent

Scott Polk @scottpolk

• Populate your content (meta cafe, YouTube, Flickr)
• Put onto your own site
• Build links to your content to build authority

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

In-House SEO

If you have a do-it-yourself attitude, then you’re probably relying on your own skills for your site SEO. Our panelists are veteran in-house search engine optimizers, and will reveal the best tips, tools and techniques for doing SEO in house. Learn all about the challenges and complications that might arise and the best way to deal with them in order to meet your SEO goals.

Moderator: Melanie Mitchell

Speakers:
Ash Nallawalla, Traffic Manager, Yellow Pages, Sensis Pty Ltd, @ashnallawalla
Chris Hooley, Owner, MCP Media, @ChrisHooley
Alex Bennert, In-house SEO, Wall Street Journal, @seosylph
Jessica L Bowman, Founder & President, SEOinhouse.com, @jessicabowman

Chris Hooley, Owner, MCP Media, @ChrisHooley

Key Areas for Scheduling Work Flow:

• Content generation schedules
• Content distrubtion schedules
• Time link acquisition goals
• Room for “emergencies”
• Getting SEO involved in inter-department duties
• Approval Processes
• Incentives

Key Takeaways:

• Almost every piece of content your company produces is a link opportunity!
• Find the right talent, don’t rush it
• People and jobs can be optimized

Listening to Alex Bennert, In-house SEO, Wall Street Journal

Keys to In-House SEO

• Always “Train Often”. There are multiple departments in your organization (IT, Content Developers (Bloggers, Journalists, Features Writers, Editors, Video), Management, Design, Business Development). So there is plenty of opportunity for training.
• Maintain a regularly scheduled SEO workshop session (20 minutes max)
• Use examples relevant to your audience
• Even if only one person shows up, do the presentation
• Include industry trends and changes
• Develop a presentation specific to each department, only tell them what they need to know

  For IT it may include:

  • Google webmaster tools, duplicate content, etc., Use 301s vs 302s, if it’s something we can’t do don’t harp on it.

  SEO for Biz Dev & Marketing may include:

  • Vendor review, site search, link equity syndication of content
  • Evaluate vendor product (site search, power listings)
  • Integration (cnames, iframes)
  • Assessing SEO value and link equity of potential partner sites or acquisitions
  • Microsites

  SEO for Content Development may include:

  • Title Tag, Meta Description headers
  • Linking, anchor text, nofollows
  • Writers (features – Keyword research, Google Insight for recurring events
  • Bloggers (QDF, trends, adjacent subjects for competitive terms)
  • Journalists (basic headlines, on-the-fly KW research)
  • Analytics (What’s there, how to use it, alternatives)

Ash Nallawalla, Traffic Manager, Australian Yellow Pages, Sensis Pty Ltd (senis.au)

Key Points:

• Size of website matters
• Budget matters ($20K consulting is a lot, but not compared to a full time employee)
• The economy matters
• Structure, Processes and Politics matter

SEO skill set

What skills should the in-house SEO have?

• Marketing
• On-page SEO (basic web design implied)
• Off-page SEO (linking)
• Web server knowledge (at least one platform) (i.e. apache)

Bonus skills:

• PHP/mysql (or msft)
• Javascript
• Java (rop. evn)
• Graphics

Jessica L Bowman, Founder & President, SEOinhouse.com

Common Misconceptions:

• SEO is just code tweaks
• SEO is about keywords in text
• It’s about links
• I don’t need to worry about SEO

Reality Check:

• SEO is unlike any other function in your company
• SEO is both a highly technical and a highly marketing function
• You can’t easily predict SEO like other marketing channels
• One conversation with SEO doesn’t cut it
• SEO isn’t always high enough in the org chart to get what they need
• 2-6 months = honeymoon stage
• Most in-house SEOs get disappointed in reality stage

You Need to Start with a Scope Doc (project charter)

• SEO success facors, SEO traffic, etc.
• Requirements Gathering – Meetings
• Project Plan
• Back End dev on as needed only
• QA Testing
• SEO pubic relations plan (12 mont)
• SEO checklist  (give bizcard)

Other Key Points:

• Distribute the SEO duties / work load and give accountability through out the organization
• Create SEO Champions/ Ambassadors
• Everyone Needs to Make SEO a Success:  The Execs, Prod Mgr, Project Mgr, Usability, Progammers, QA Testers, etc.

PubCon Las Vegas 2009
November 10-13, 2009
Las Vegas Convention Center
Las Vegas Nevada
http://www.pubcon.com/

When it comes to creating marketing buzz online, webmasters pretty much invented the concept. PubCon is four days of leading edge education and networking in over 90 sessions featuring 200 expert speakers in Social Media, Affiliate Programs, Search, and SEO/SEM. In its 8th year, PubCon was founded out of the rich and diverse base of WebmasterWorld forums. These aren’t people who just talk about this stuff – these are people who do this stuff.

The A-List alpha attendees to PubCon are among the most highly pursued demographic in the online marketing world. Highly educated and computer savvy, they’re early adopters of the latest web technologies and trends. These are the folks that any forward thinking company wants to reach and network with.