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

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.

SEO/SEM

Speakers:

Rhea Drysale: Outspoken Media
Stephen Spencer: Net Concepts
Brett Tabke: WebmasterWorld, PubCon
10/16/2009, 4pm – 5pm

SEO/SEM Tools

• seo-browser.com: scans websites for SEO content. Tells you what type of redirect it is.
• Yahoo Site Explorer: free tool, log in to get comprehensive data, exclude internal links, only inbound links from other sites, lists not all, but most of your inbound links
• getlisted.org to claim your business on several local search engines & see how your business is listed at Google, Yahoo, and other top local search engines

SEO/SEM Tips

• Duplicate content is never going to rank as well as original content
• Keyword research: Google Adwords, sort by search volume, use it to base content around those words or phrases
• Every time you get a redirect, you lose a little value. (www versus non-www). Always stick with the same thing.
• Website problems: Lack of 301 redirects, too much duplicate content, http versus https, default is 302 redirect, broad keywords, title tags & body copy should be used, in “description”, title matters.
• Site:yourdomain on Google search. Checks the site for www versus non-www redirects
• Use this at the end of “Site:yourdomain”: &start =990&filter=0
• Shorter, keyword-rich content is better for your page rank and click thru rate
• No index (for Google: don’t index, don’t include in data page) and disallow (page is not accessible), no follow (don’t link the page rank, i.e. all your social buttons so you don‘t hemorrhage on page ranks), don’t vouch for sites that are not relevant to you
• Google webmaster central: verify your website, tell them what pages you want included & not included, lists your back links, have multiple people verify for you to find 404 errors, never use the removal tool because you can’t change your mind for six months,
• SEO Title Tags: a plugin for Wordpress. Related words in title tag, but not in the post title, mass edit your title tags, get custom title tags for your various pages and posts without going into each page for editing, they do not conflict
• Blog posts: Use the more tag after the first paragraph, links back to your articles, don’t use your home page, use a tiny URL, (some services do not use a 301, always use one with a 301, NOT a 302) or use a hand-crafted optional excerpt, define that with a code to display the unique content.

Speakers:
Vanessa Fox
Adam Audette
Derrick Wheeler
Track: SEO

Has something gone wrong with your organic search engine traffic? An SEO audit might be in order. This session covers how to conduct an efficient audit that troubleshoots real problems, rather than taking you down blind alleys. It also helps you reassess your current SEO efforts for areas that can be tweaked and improved.

Speaker: Derrick Wheeler

CIRTA:

Crawl
Index
Rank
Traffic
Action

Six Steps to Sucess:

Organic Search Engine Optimization is the process of systematically satisfying the needs of search engines and the needs of your users.

1. search engine crawls entire site
2. search engine indexes entire site
3. users perform targeted queries
4. search engine ranks appropriate pages
5. users click on ranked listings
6. users take action and/or interact with the site

You Should Track SE Ranking on a Monthly Basis:

• Your top keyword list
• Your long tail keyword list
• User paths
• Success events
• Value of user

Speaker: Adam Audette

Outrider (‘97), AudetteMedia, Oversee SEO at Zappos, Lead SEO strategy at AKQA

Site Audits are extremely intensive

• Rely on experience
• Problem solving is crucial
• Basics can easily be taught
• Takes time to learn deeply

Part Art:

• Follow your nose
• Use your experience
• Requires diligence
• Requires trust

Part Science:

• Use tools to diagnose
• Undergo calculate investigation
• Check for set factors
• Document everything

Factors Investigated:

• Main navigation elements
• General navigation items
• URL

A Framework for SEO audits:

On-page:

• Domains
• Sections and categories
• Pages
• Media (Images, video, etc.)

Off-Page:

• Back-links (quantity, quality)
• Social media signals
• Cache date(s), indexed pages
• Toolbar PageRank

Big 4 Factors:

1. URLs
2. Site Architecture & Navigation
3. Product-level Pages
4. Site Latency

What about Deliverables:

• Summarize
• Keep it Prioritized
• Keep it Actionable
• Build in Follow-up
• Sizzle Matters (presentation matters, professional, visuals)

Executive Summary

Priority level = High Medium Low

Documenting Issues:

• Problem
• Impact
• Recommended Solutions

Some Cool Tools:

• Google Searches
  site: + inurl: / intitle:
• Lynx / SEO-browser.com
• Charles / ySlow (checks latency)
• Various Toolbars
  SEO Book Toolbar – compare up to 5 URLs together
• Google WAVE

Other Tools:

• Linkscape
• SEMRush
• wget
• Log Analysis

Speaker: Vanessa Fox

Tools and Tactics for Diagnostics

• webmaster.live.com
• siteexplorer.yahoo.com
• Google Analytics
• tools.seobook.com
• firefox plugins

Crawling, Indexing, Ranking

Step 1: Get the data

Benchmark the top 10 search queries that bring in the most traffic
Aaron wall’s rank checker

Crawl Log Example: Apache Log Analyzer 2 Feed
code.simonecarletti.com/wiki/apachelog2feed

For SEO: Site latency = indexing factor = if site not crawled then it’s a ranking factor

AJAX = URL needs to change (don’t keep the same URL for all content/pages)

URL structure Checklist

Crawl efficiency checklist

No Follow -> registration pages, add to cart shopping cart pages, etc.

1. Check if you are penalized
   webmaster.live.com
   google.com/webmasters
2. Review the webmaster guidelines
3. Identify the issue
4. Fix it!
5. Request re-evaluations

For SEO: site optimization, main site errors, http://www.iis.net/extensions/seotoolkit/

Search Engine Optimization 301 – Miva Merchant 2009

Speakers:
Nikki Patrick, Tampa-SEO.com
Gillian Muessig, SEOMoz.org

Inner Linking for SEO success

Nikki Patrick
Nikki@Tampa-SEO.com

If Content is King then Linking is Queen

Inner linking is taking keyword rich text and linking to to another page on your site with the content of your website. This allows the Search Engine spider to easily spider all the pages of your site.

Don’t over do it! You want to add a few links withi the content of each page that link to other pages that may be related. Only do this if it makes sense.

Google doesn’t like to see more than 100 links per page, including your navigation.

Inner Linking:

• Search engines place more value on links within the content than links from your navigation
• Use the bold tag around your anchor text to add value to the link, do not style it in the CSS. Don’t overdue it on the same keyword.
• Your home page should have links to category pages to push link juice to them.

Add a SEO friendly site map to your website. Use both HTML and XML
www.xml-sitemaps.com
www.sitemappro.com

A well structured inner linking campaign will give you those indented listing in the SERP’s as well as the internal pages

Page Sculpting

Page sculpting is the art of pushing link juice or value to certain pages of your site for increased rankings. Each link is assigned a certain amount of value.

The search engines don’t need to index every page of your site. Add the rel=”nofollow” tag inside of a link if you don’t want the search engine spiders to follow it.

You want to “nofollow: pages like

• shopping cart, checkout pages
• abous us, contact us, company info

You DO want to follow category pages, product pages, resource pages, affiliate pages, and the home page

You can also add rel=”follow” to tell the spiders to follow those links

Be careful when page sculpting. It is an advanced technique that can hurt your rankings if not done correctly.

SEO Tip: Use the no follow tag for “more info” link and buttons to give more link juice for keyword rich anchor text

Advanced Linkbuilding

So Juicy, You’ll Need a Napkin!

Gillian Muessig
SEOMoz.org

Pull Marketing
Push Marketing (Ads to your website)
Mold the two

How to perform searches that will result in high quality link acquisition targets:

The Obvious:

Seek permutations of keywords from top 100 ranking sites:
snowboard equipment (with quotes, no quotes, etc.)

Reciprocal Linking Tactic that Works

• Email sites or people you want to trade links with
• Offer to link to a piece of conte on their website an articel a grpph a tool a blog post
• In exchange, ask them to find something they like about your website,
• Write something review to them and visa versa

Creating a mobile stylesheet has more than just usability benefits. There are hundres of directories on the webs that list mobile/PDA-friendly websites

Image links on Steroids

Use a CSS image replacement so the link looks like HTML

Tickle the Blogger

• Compel bloggers
• Comment
• Write about them, then alert them

Unbelievable link sources:

Certain blog sections at Amazon
Check out pages examples on Amazon like:

• Jennifer Wilson Witch Books
• Blogging with MSN Saces
• How to Profit from Art

Introduction to SEO – Miva Merchant 2009
Speaker: Mark Simon, Miva Merchant

Conference Notes/Descriptions:

I. How Search Engines Rank Pages

• Search Engine Rank Pages Not Websites
• What the Search Engines evaluate (Ranking Factors)
• Title
• Description (keyword and selling tool)
• Headline (Header tags, 6 tags, 1 to 6)
• Body Text (Write for your customers, write to convert, then plug in keywords later)
• Anchor Text (keyword vote for that page)
• Links
• File names
• Keyword

II. Keyword Research

• Target Markets & Demographics
• Customer lingo – may not be what you think
• Industry lingo – tribal speak
• Number of Searches
• Number of Competing Pages
• Competitor Strength
• Identifying Opportunity (lowest amount of competition for a keyword phrase vs. number of searches)
• Keyword Tools

III. Competitive Analysis (find keywords, find links, etc.)

• Getting into the Search Engines
• Measure Success
• SEO for the CEO

IV. Getting into the Search Engines

• Links from other websites
• Sitemaps – HTML and XML

V. Metrics – Measuring Success

• PageRank doesn’t matter

What does matter:

• Conversion Rates
• Average value of visitors
• Traffic Sources
• Ranking for highly converting keywords
• Inbounds links
• Bounce rate

Q&A:

What is the difference between Indexing and Caching:
Indexing (google bot) = spider your pages and stores the data in their database
Caching = last version that google has saved

If some of my page isn’t indexed how do I get them in there (site:website.com):

1. Sitemap
2. Interlinking top pages (link from top popular internal pages)
3. Social Bookmarking

Some tools and resources mentioned during the SEO session at Miva Merchant

• SitemapPro.com
• SEORecon.com
• Linkscape Tool from SEOMoz.org
• SEObook.com

Speaker: Network Solutions

5 Key Elements for SEO

1. Build Content
2. Build Inbound Links
3. Launch PPC Campaigns
4. Measure results
5. Maintain and update the site continually

Key On-page Factors

1. Title tags
2. Meta Description
3. Meta Keywords (not high weighted but should still include)
4. Headlines
5. Body copy

Bad for Search Engines

Must consider SEO impacts when deciding to implement these development tools

• Flash Website/Pages
• Dynamic Content Website/Pages
• Ajax Pages