© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 7 Secrets to High Google Rankings: By Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #1: How to Gauge the Missed Opportunity Costs  Calculate the missed opportunity cost of not ranking well for products and services that you offer? # of people searching for your keywords x engine share (Google = 60%) x expected click- through rate average conversion rate average transaction amount xx  E.g.10,000/day x 60% x 10% x 5% x $100 = $3,000/day

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts How Frequently Are People Searching For My Keywords?  Tools to check popularity of keyword searches –Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool ( –WordTracker.com –Trellian’s KeywordDiscovery.com –Google’s Keyword Tool –Google Trends –Google Suggest

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Overture Keyword Selector Tool  Pros –Free! –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (including all searches on Yahoo!)  Cons –Variations of keywords are aggregated (e.g. verb tenses, plural & singular, misspellings) –Rife with bogus data from automated searches –Only a month’s data. No historical archives.

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to Yahoo!

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts WordTracker.com  Pros –Based on last 60 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 ($260/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

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to WordTracker

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts KeywordDiscovery.com  Pros –Full year of historical archives –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (9 billion searches compiled from 37 engines) –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 (~$30/month) –Contains bogus data from automated searches

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to KeywordDiscovery

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google AdWords Keyword Tool  Pros –Free! (Must have an AdWords account though) –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google) –Singular vs plural, misspellings, verb tenses all separated out –Can segment by country –Synonyms  Cons –No hard numbers  Augment this tool with other free Google tools: –Google Suggest (labs.google.com/suggest) –Google Trends (

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to Google AdWords Keyword Tool

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to Google AdWords Keyword Tool

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to Google Trends

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Popularity – According to Google Suggest

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts How To Factor in Competitiveness When Looking at Keywords?  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)

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #2: How to Make Your Pages “Sing”  Each web page should have a unique keyword focus (i.e. every page has a “song”)  The higher up in the HTML on the page, the more weight the keyword is given  Have at least words per page  Title tag is most important element on the page  Home page is the most important page

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #2: How to Make Your Pages “Sing”  Heading tags (H1, H2)  Contextual links  Text links much better than graphic links  Alt tags may be mildly helpful, for images that are links  Meta tags don’t improve rankings  Meta description can influence what’s displayed in the search results

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #2: How to Make Your Pages “Sing”  Remember, you’re writing for humans & search engines equally –You still have to be compelling, interesting (voice/personality), succinct, relevant (WII-FM) and reader focused (“you” vs. “we”) –Anything you’d be embarrassed to show your customers or a Google rep should not be fed to the search engines!

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Pretty good title

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Not so good title – where’s the phrase “credit card”?

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Good link text and body copy

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Good link text and body copy

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts No link text or body copy

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts No link text or body copy

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Take a peek under the hood

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts The “meta tags”

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Unnecessarily bloated HTML

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #3: How to Build Links, Strengthen PageRank  Inbound links play a key role in determining rankings  It’s not just about quantity (“link popularity”); it’s about quality (importance of the page, topically relevant/authoritative)  PageRank™ – Google’s algorithm for measuring a page’s importance; Yahoo & MSN have similar measures  Each web page (not site) has its own PageRank score  PageRank scores from 0 to 10; logarithmic scale

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #3: How to Build Links, Strengthen PageRank  Check your link popularity at  Check your PageRank with the Google Toolbar (download it from toolbar.google.com)  And/or check your home page’s PageRank using the Google Directory (directory.google.com) –Listings are ranked in order of PageRank

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google’s Toolbar – with handy PageRank Meter

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Directory – listings are organized by PageRank

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #3: How to Build Links, Strengthen PageRank  Find link targets –Review links of competitive sites, sites in your keyword market Again, use the Link Checker tool at Yahoo’s linkdomain: query operator & Yahoo Site Explorer tool Run a link: query on –Check sites with high rankings for relevant keywords –The fewer the number of links on their page, the better  Offer link-worthy content. Keep it fresh.  Consider providing an RSS feed

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Conduct any Google query and get results organized by PageRank

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #3: How to Build Links, Strengthen PageRank  Try to get good keywords in the hyperlink text  Types of links that are likely to get discounted: –Reciprocal links –Affiliated sites (on the same IP range or hostname) –Footer links (at the bottom of the page) –Site-wide links  Don’t participate in “link farms” or FFA (“Free For All”) sites –Hallmarks of a link farm = more urls per page & less organization  Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #3: How to Build Links, Strengthen PageRank  Sites with higher PageRank get crawled earlier, faster, and deeper by Googlebot  “Google Bombing” –Inbound contextual links alone can drive a site to the top of Google (e.g. “miserable failure”) –Also works on Yahoo, Live Search, etc.

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #4: How to Rejig Your Internal Linking Structure  It’s not just about inbound links; internal links matter too  Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of your hierarchical internal linking structure  Links are the currency of the Web as far as search engines are concerned; spend it wisely w/in your site –Site hierarchy (tree structure) –Breadcrumb navigation –Site map

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Dynamic Sites Can Kill Your Internal PageRank “Flow”  The issue lies with “spider traps”  Avoid stop characters (?, &, =), complex URLs  Session IDs are death to search visibility  Options –Recode your site to not pass “query strings” –URL rewriting (using a server module/plug-in) –Remote-hosted “proxy serving” (e.g. GravityStream)  catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Search engine spiders turn their noses up at such URLs

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Googlebot got caught in a “spider trap”

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Duplicate pages

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Avoid PageRank Dilution  Careful about having multiple URLs serving up the same content –Multiple homes for your content –Multiple domains registered and resolving to your site –abccompany.com vs. – version of your site –Session IDs or User IDs in the URL –301 redirect them all to the definitive version of the page  Removed pages –301 redirect rather than 404

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Avoid PageRank Dilution  Example of multiple homes for the same content: Laura Ries’ blog

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Optimize PageRank Flow  Link gain dissipates due to –Dynamic URLs –Session IDs or User IDs in the URL –Superfluous flags in the URL  Link gain is typically blocked by –Links based in JavaScript, Java, or Flash –Overly complex URLs (e.g. 7 parameters in the query string) –Forms (including pulldown lists) –Temporary (302) redirects

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Optimize PageRank Flow  Manage the flow using “nofollow” on unimportant links –  Does it flow? Tools to check –Poodle Predictor ( –Server Header Checker –SEOChat’s PageRank Lookup –Do a “site:” search on SEOChat’s PageRank Search

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Server Header Checker

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #5: How to Influence the Click Decision  Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of the search results. 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 and value proposition in your descriptions  Your title tag is critical  Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence what’s displayed here

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Where do searchers look? (Enquiro, Did-it, Eyetools Study)

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Search listings – 1 good, 1 lousy

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #5: How to Influence the Click Decision  You may be #1 for some but not others… Search results are tailored to the user –Google Search History, geolocation, etc.  Vertical search results offers multiple paths to visibility –Google Base, Google Co-Op, Google Blog Search, Google Maps (Local),… –This also has translated into visibility in the “onebox” –Google’s new “Universal Search” results

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google’s “Onebox”

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #6: How to Check Your “Pulse” and Benchmark  Number of pages indexed (netconcepts.com/urlcheck)  Google PageRank  Link popularity  Alexa ranking (alexa.com)  Positions in the search results for important keywords  What keywords are they targeting? (check their metatags)

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Secret #6: How to Check Your “Pulse” and Benchmark  Measure what’s important to your bottom line –Not “hits” or even unique visitors –Number of orders delivered by search engines –Sales volume delivered by search engines –Profit delivered by search engines –Conversion rate –Cost per conversion, Cost per lead –ROI

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts ROI – Sales by keyword

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts ROI – Sales by referrer

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #6: How to Check Your “Pulse” and Benchmark  Advanced metrics that most analytics packages don’t measure: –Page yield –Keyword yield (keywords per page) –Spidering behavior –More metrics at multichannelmerchant.com/webchannel/seo/beneath_surface _search_012007

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Secret #7: How to Avoid SEO “Worst Practices”  Target relevant keywords  Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages  Create deep, useful content  Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize content  Links should be relevant (no scheming!)  Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s guidelines

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Spamming in Its Many Forms…  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

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Spamming in Its Many Forms…  Pagejacking  Doorway pages  Cloaking  Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link farms  Buying up expired domains with high PageRanks  Scraping  Splogging (spam blogging)

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts BMW.de hosted many “doorway pages” like this one

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts “Sneaky redirect” sent searchers to this page

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Doorway page spam

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Doorway page spam

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword stuffing

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword stuffing in the “meta tags” too

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 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 (eg “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

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Case Study: Homestead.com  What worked –Comprehensive SEO & usability audit –Intensive on-site training sessions with their IT and marketing teams –6 months of support  What didn’t work –No significant changes to the look of the home page were allowed for political reasons, significantly reducing the options available

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Case Study: Homestead.com  Results –Within 8 weeks of launch of some preliminary optimization work, on page 1 for “website hosting” in Google –With our audit as a blueprint, later that year launched an internally built site redesign which landed them the #1 Google position for “website hosting” –Consistently held #1 position for 2 years! Still on page 1

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

SEO Tools  For keyword research –WordTracker –KeywordDiscovery –Overture Keyword Selector –Google Suggest –Google Trends –Google AdWords Keyword Tool –Googspy –SEOSleuth

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Tools  For link analysis and PageRank –TouchGraph –Live PageRank –WebmasterEyes –Google Toolbar –Google Directory –SEO for Firefox –SEOpen – Page Strength Tool – Netconcepts Link Checker – PageRank Lookup – PageRank Search – Neat-o – SEO-Links – Google Webmaster Central – Thumbshots Ranking

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Tools  Miscellaneous –User Agent Switcher –SwitchProxy –Scrutinizer –Copyscape Poodle Predictor –Xenu Link Sleuth –Robot Replay –CrazyEgg –What’s That Site Running –Wayback Machine

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Tools  For indexation checking –Yahoo Site Explorer –Netconcepts URL Checker –Netconcepts Product Page Checker  Other reporting –Alexa –DigitalPoint Keyword Rankings –Urltrends –Hitwise ($$)  List and links at &

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Further Reading  google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769    googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com  blog.outer-court.com   

© 2007 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Q&A!  For an ebook on Google power searching, SEO checklists & worksheets, and audio recording, executive summary & transcript of an SEO thought leaders teleconference, and this Powerpoint, give me your business card  Any questions come to you later, contact me: