© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO: From Soup to Nuts presented by Stephan Spencer, Founder, President & CEO Netconcepts

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Search Engine Marketing SEM Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Paid Inclusion (PI) Paid Placement (PPC/PPA)  SEO – influence rankings in the “natural” (a.k.a. “organic”, a.k.a. “algorithmic”) search results.  PPC – paid search advertising on a pay-per-click basis. The more you pay, the higher your placement. Stop paying = stop receiving traffic.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO is NOT Paid Advertising  Highly competitive  Can’t buy your way in … earn it  Requires an investment –Time –Education –Resources Read: “SEO Is Not Free” -

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Search Engine Optimization  86% of clicks on Google are from organic search, 14% from paid search. (Source: beussery.com, 2/1/2008)  Delivers qualified leads –Fundamentally different than traditional marketing / advertising –Searchers are looking for you –More & more offline sales carry an online element

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Natural vs. Paid Natural Paid

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Listings – Your Virtual Sales Force  Savvy retailers making 6-7 figures a month from natural listings.  Savvy MFA (Made for AdSense) site owners making 5-6 figures per month.  Most sites are not SE-friendly  Google friendliness = friendly to other engines  First calculate your missed opportunities

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Not doing SEO? You’re Leaving Money on the Table  Calculate the missed opportunity cost of not ranking well for products & services that you offer? # of people searching for your keywords x engine share (Google = 70%) x expected click- through rate average conversion rate average transaction amount xx  E.g.10,000/day x 70% x 10% x 5% x $100 = $3,500/day

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Most Important Search Engines  Google (also powers AOL Search, Netscape.com, iWon, etc.) – 70.77% market share  Yahoo! (also powers Alltheweb, AltaVista, Hotbot, Lycos, CNN, A9) – 18.65%  Live Search (formerly MSN Search) – 4.18%  Ask – 3.53% (Market share source: Hitwise, July 2008)

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts What Are Searchers Looking For?  Keyword Research –“Target the wrong keywords & all your efforts will be in vain.”  The “right” keywords are … –Relevant to your business –Popular with searchers

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Research  Tools for brainstorming a seed list –Quintura –Google Suggest (now integrated into Google search) –Yahoo Assist  Tools to check popularity of keyword searches –Wordtracker –Trellian’s Keyword Discovery –Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool –Google Trends –Google Insights for Search

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Quintura  Click on terms on the left to realign the data.  Shows relations of terms & website related results.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Quintura  Pros –Free! –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (including all searches on Yahoo!). –Provides a visual representation  Cons –No quantifiable data –Interconnections & relations may not be relevant

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Suggest  Originally a separate testing lab in beta, rolled into web search August  Shows number of competing results on right.  Search volume inferred based on order, but no quantifiable value.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Suggest  Pros –Free! –Data is from Google search data –Provides live suggestions as you type  Cons –No quantifiable data –Based on typing order

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts  Part of Yahoo Search  Kicks in when delay while entering search phrases  Word can match any part of search phrase Yahoo Assist

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Yahoo Assist  Pros –Free! –Data is from Yahoo search data –Provides live suggestions as you type –Typed phrases can match anywhere within the suggestions  Cons –No quantifiable data

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Wordtracker  Enter in keywords & search phrases to be expound upon.  Build out a project with relevant terms.  Use for brainstorming as well as drilling down into specific phrases.  Obtain quantifiable search numbers. Free version: freekeywords.wordtracker.com

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Wordtracker  Pros –Based on last 130 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 ($59/month or $329/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

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Discovery  Similar features as Wordtracker.  Trend graphs provide a visual that goes beyond total searches.  Various settings to refine data.  Note: plural setting only pluralizes the last word. Free version:

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Discovery  Pros –Full year of historical archives –Data is from a larger sample of Internet searches –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 ($69.95/month or $599.40/year). –Contains bogus data from automated searches

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts  Enter in lists of terms.  Pull terms from a web page.  Search volume –Switch to Exact match –Show Search Volume Trends column. Google AdWords Keyword Tool Free version: adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google AdWords Keyword Tool  Pros –Free! –Accessing within Google AdWords yields more features –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google) –Singular vs. plural, misspellings, verb tenses –Can segment by country (within AdWords) –Synonyms –Monthly & average search volumes  Cons –Numbers are approximations

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts  Provides a graphical, relative search volume comparison.  Enter in up to 5 search terms.  Shows related news.  Sign-in to get relative ranking. Google Trends

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Trends  Pros –Free! –Signing into Google account provides additional detail & features –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google) –Shows related news searches –Can segment by region or subregion –Filter by time frame –Can run against websites as well  Cons –Numbers are purely relational to the query set –No way to export –Only preset data filtering –Limited to broad, popular search phrases

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Insights for Search  Similar to Google Trends  Additional unique features –Compare against a category –Geographic search volume maps –Provides a relative index measure against all searches performed on Google over time.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Insights for Search  Pros –Free! –Signing into Google account provides additional detail & features –Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google) –Shows related news searches –Shows top searches –Show rising search phrases –Can segment by region & subregion –Filter by time frame, even custom date ranges –Export as CSV  Cons –Numbers are a normalized index –Limited to broad, popular search phrases

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Research  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). –Perform advanced searches to determine difficulty “digital cameras” intitle:“digital cameras”

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO is a Moving Target  Lots of change, all the time … –Personalization & customization –Vertical search services (Images, Video, News, Maps, etc.) –“Universal Search”  Fortunately, the tried-and-true tactics still work … –Topically relevant links from important sites –Anchor text –Keyword-rich title tags –Keyword-rich content –Internal hierarchical linking structure –The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Seven Steps to High Rankings 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed 2) Get Your Pages Visible 3) Build Links & PageRank 4) Leverage Your PageRank 4) Encourage Clickthrough 6) Track the Right Metrics 7) Follow Best Practices

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed  Pages can’t rank if they aren’t indexed  The better your PageRank, the deeper & more often your site will be crawled by Google.  Indexation challenges typically stem from: –Overly-complex URLs –Content duplication –Cannibalization –Non-canonicalization (www vs. non-www)  Indexation … too much, or not enough?

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Control What Should & Shouldn’t Be  Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, & include non-indexed pages (e.g. ones with no title or snippet).  Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of redirects used, requiring cookies, etc.) can kill indexation.  Utilize XML sitemaps to help indexation & overcome crawling hurdles.  Make sure your “404 File Not Found” page returns a hard 404 header status code.  Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing your URLs, eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects when needed, & CSS styling for printer friendly.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Complexities Can Kill the Crawl  Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they fear “spider traps.”  Avoid: –stop characters (?, &, =), ‘cgi-bin’ –session IDs or long numerical strings that might appear like a session ID. –unnecessary variables in your URLs, tracking parameters. –frames –redirects –pop-ups –navigation in Flash/Java/JavaScript/pulldown boxes –If not feasible due to platform constraints, can be easily handled through proxy technology (e.g., Netconcepts’ GravityStream). Tips: -Pass parameters via cookies -Append tracking parameters as a named anchor using “#” instead of “?” E.g., rather than tracking like ?nav=footer use #nav=footer. -Use CSS & HTML for dropdown menus, only relying on JavaScript for the interactivity. -Use hyphens to separate words instead of underscores. Tips: -Pass parameters via cookies -Append tracking parameters as a named anchor using “#” instead of “?” E.g., rather than tracking like ?nav=footer use #nav=footer. -Use CSS & HTML for dropdown menus, only relying on JavaScript for the interactivity. -Use hyphens to separate words instead of underscores.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Avoid Complex URLs  May inhibit or even prevent crawling.  Watch PageRank, check cache & indexation of URLs to determine where issues may lie. One click in and cached: Two clicks, not cached:

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Canonicalization  One source – one destination  At its simplest, refers to the homepage. Example: –qvc.com –  Relates to any content duplication.  “Canonical” tag can help

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 1 Is the Loneliest Number  How many URLs (not pages) does your site have? –site: –Append to Google search query: &filter=0 to include more: –Use Webmaster Central Sitemaps reporting –Crawl your own site (Xenu Link Sleuth) –Compare the counts  More than 1 but less than infinity …

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts But 2 Isn’t Much Better

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Robots.txt  Protocol for blocking bots –Keep them out of specific sections –Help avoid duplicate content –Auto-discovery of XML sitemap –Done wrong, can block bots from entire site –Unfortunately, too often, implemented incorrectly Tip: This will block all bots from your entire site User-agent: * Disallow: / Are you sure that’s what you want? Tip: This will block all bots from your entire site User-agent: * Disallow: / Are you sure that’s what you want?

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Infinite URL Bloat  Infinite URL combinations due to: –Pagination –Sorting –Filtering –Display options /N/ /link/ref/Ns/accm_num_unts_sld|1/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do /N/ /link/ref/Ns/accm_num_unts_sld|1/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts XML Sitemaps  Inform the search engines of your pages. –Auto-discovery through robots.txt. –Google Webmaster Central –Yahoo Site Explorer –MSN / Live Webmaster Center  Not a solution for bad URLs  Google’s reporting of indexed URLs compared to total URLs submitted may be an indicator of URL or content quality.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 2) Get Your Pages Visible  100+ “signals” that influence ranking  “Title tag” is the most important copy “on the page”  Home page is the most important page of a site  Every page of a site has a “song” (keyword theme)  Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 & H2 tags), alt attributes, & high up in the page (where they’re given more “weight”).  Eliminate extraneous HTML code  “Meta tags” are not a magic bullet  Have text for navigation, not graphics  Don’t let whizz-bang, oh-ah bring you down

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Meaningful Titles  Keyword-rich, without being spammy.  Lead with most important keywords.  Looks good to humans & bots.  DPReview.com –#1 for: digital camera –#1 for: digital cameras –Page-1 in Google for all phrase variations within title. Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Not So Meaningful Titles  Not changing titles is a wasted opportunity.  Check your own site for this costly mistake. site: intitle:“Untitled Document”

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Duplicate Title Tags  Check for duplication –Use special queries with Google to find duplication. –Over 9,000 duplicates of this title alone … what does it say to Google? Purely duplicate titles Canonicalization Parameters & URL bloat site: intitle:"Office Supplies: Office Products and Office Furniture: Office Depot"

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Helps Find Duplication  Google’s Webmaster Central –Alerted to duplicate titles –XML sitemaps –Identify issues –External links –Crawl rate –Search phrases

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Wasted Opportunity  No keyword value, aside from brand –Key products? –Solutions? –Famous taglines? Just do it Dude, you’re getting a Dell Quicker picker upper Nothing runs like a Deere Lenovo United States Lenovo select a country/region

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Lucky Position  Rare to see a result without the search phrase within the title.  Strong enough brand presence: –Enough on-site reinforcement. –Strong enough & relevant in-bound linkage.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Visually Appealing to Humans  Textual body copy  Textual navigation & links.  Doesn’t mean a site can’t be visually appealing.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Textually Appealing to Bots (& humans)  Check for text vs. images: –Select individual text –Ctrl-A to select all –View “text only” version in Google cache.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts But Visual Appeal Carries a Cost With images turned off: –No body copy –Minimal anchor text links –And not to main product pages With images turned off: –No body copy –Minimal anchor text links –And not to main product pages

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts  Google’s text-only cache tells it all: –No body copy –Minimal anchor text links –No links to main product pages The Cost of Natural Search Loss

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Meta Tags No Magic Bullet  Meta descriptions are somewhat important, but only for clickthrough.  Meta keywords – ignored by Google & MSN/Live, no discernable value in Yahoo or Ask.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Code Bloat – More Code Than Copy  Tables-based layouts vs. table- less & CSS.  Inline & embedded CSS vs. external.  Embedded JavaScript vs. external.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Beware the Whizz Bang  Further you move from pure HTML, the greater the risks of stopping the bots, or even turning away the humans. –JavaScript powered dropdown navigations. –AJAX interactivity –Flash  Progressive enhancement – start with the lowest common denominator, then layer on the effects. This Nokia page may still be loading … I couldn’t stand waiting to find out.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Use JavaScript for Enhancement  Problem when JavaScript doesn’t enhance the experience, but controls the experience. –May stop bots & humans in their tracks. –Unpredictable user- experience. –Forget screen readers –Mobile usage questionable With JavaScript Without JavaScript

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Accessibility & SEO – Hand-in-Hand  Bots experience the same challenges of accessibility. –Blind users –Motor-skills challenged But also “everyday” users –Tiny screens –Mobile browsers – iPhone experience is not typical.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Flash – Doesn’t Do It  Flash front doors, splash screens, & Flash-based sites. –May stop bots & humans in their tracks. –Unpredictable user- experience. –Forget screen readers –Unlikely mobile usage

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 3) Build Links & PageRank  “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings  PageRank – Links from “important” sites have more impact on your Google rankings (weighted link popularity).  Google offers a window into your PageRank –PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com) –Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages –3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” & “PageRank Search.”  Live Search and Yahoo have similar measures to PageRank

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts PageRank 101  Logarithmic scale from 0 to 10  Assigned to web pages, not sites  Based on inbound links to pages  Heavily weighted on link quality  Passed through internal & external links.  Higher PageRank may lead Googlebot to: –Crawl more frequently –Crawl faster –Crawl deeper Culligan 0 ebay Google Amazon Disney Gap Relative number of pages with PR rating EFFORTEFFORT Sampling of Homepage PageRank Ratings Boston Store

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Toolbar  View PageRank of current page, once turned on.  Available for: –Firefox –Internet Explorer

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Directory  Pulls from DMOZ  Ordered by Google’s PageRank.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Chat PageRank Search  Allows Google search with ranking by PageRank: –Regular searches –Advanced query searches site: link: intitle:

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Building High Quality Links  Develop great content  Submit to authoritative, topical, & local directories  Work with your business partners  Link bait  Tap into social media  Blogging  Press releases  Syndicate through RSS

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 4) Leverage Your PageRank  Your homepage’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of your hierarchical internal linking structure (e.g. breadcrumb navigation).  Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink (“Google bombing”).  Utilize rel=“nofollow” internally, but with care  Don’t hoard your PageRank  Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Avoid PageRank Dilution  Many of the structural issues that impact indexation, can impact PageRank. –Canonicalization ( vs. domain.com) –Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes, superfluous parameters). –In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs (with ?, &, and = characters) because of “spider traps.” Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a hosted proxy service (e.g., GravityStream). Read: catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts  1 product  5 different URLs –Diluting PageRank –Duplicated content –Self-competing, cannibalizing –Diluted crawl equity Even You Know Who Struggles

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 5) Encourage Clickthrough  Being on top of search results commands attention. 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 & value proposition in your descriptions.  Your title tag is critical  Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence what’s displayed here.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Power of Position  Where do searchers look? –Enquiro, Did-it Eyetools study. –Golden Triangle or “F” shape  Focus on –Natural search vs. Paid –Above the fold –Reinforcement based on search term presence.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts  Getting there is only half the battle. –Do titles captivate? –Does the description reinforce the search terms? –Does the description call the searcher to action, leading to clickthrough? Do You Sing in Search?

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 6) Track the Right Metrics  Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site indexed, % of product inventory indexed, # of “fresh pages.”  Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 - 10)  Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized) rankings  Keyword popularity: # of searches, competition, KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Indicator) scores.  Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per lead

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Analytics  Free!  Connects with your AdWords campaigns.  Wealth of data –Keywords driving traffic –Top landing pages –Referring sites –Slice & dice, drill down  Start small. Pick a couple things to watch, then dig in & try to make sense of it.  Understand … analytics is less about answers, & more about questions.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Metrics  Go beyond rankings, referrals, conversions, and revenue. Also beyond indexation, link popularity, keyword popularity, KEI, PageRank (mozRank & mozTrust!)

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Metrics  Page yield – % of unique pages yielding search engine- delivered traffic in a given month  Keyword yield – ratio of keywords to pages yielding search traffic  Brand-to-nonbrand ratio – % of search traffic coming from brand keywords vs. nonbrand keywords  Unique pages – non-duplicate pages crawled

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Sample KPIs Page Yield & Keyword Yield

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Metrics  Visitors per keyword – ratio of search engine delivered visitors to search terms  Index-to-crawl ratio – ratio of pages indexed to unique crawled pages  Engine yield – how much traffic the engine delivers for every page it crawls

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO Metrics  From Enquisite... –Top converting/performing page 2 ranked pages –Top converting/performing keywords on one engine that are non- performing on another –Highest potential keywords you’re getting traffic for –Highest potential keywords you’re not getting traffic for, based on potential referrals, revenue, and ROI

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Rankings and search referrals – According to Enquisite Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Rankings and search referrals – According to Enquisite Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite’s Campaign beta

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite’s Campaign beta

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite’s Campaign beta

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite’s Campaign beta

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Enquisite’s Campaign beta

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 7) Follow Best Practices  Target relevant keywords  Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages  Create useful content  Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize content  Links should be relevant (no scheming!)  Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s guidelines  And sometimes the best practices are just avoiding the worst practices …

© 2009 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

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Spamming in Its Darker 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)

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Doorway Page Example  BMW.de hosted many doorway pages like this one, with lots of keyword stuffed text for search engine spiders …

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Doorway Page Example  Which used a sneaky redirect to send human searchers to this page.

© 2009 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 (e.g., “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

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts What Next? Conduct an SEO Audit!  Is your site fully indexed?  Are your pages fully optimized?  Could you be acquiring more PageRank?  Are you spending your PageRank wisely?  Are you maximizing your clickthrough rates?  Are you measuring the right things?  Are you applying “best practices” in SEO & avoiding all the “worst practices?”

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Social Media Optimization Leveraging Social Media to Create Buzz and Links

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Social Media Optimization  Every social site has its own unique opportunities, quirks and anomalies.  You can think of these as “hacks”  O’Reilly definition of “hacks”: –tools, tips, and tricks that help users solve problems –aimed at intermediate-level power users

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Wikipedia  Build up your street cred (long & virtuous contribution history, user profile page with Barnstar awards) before doing anything at all self-serving.  A link on a high-profile article is worth gold, as it builds your credibility & visibility with journalists and bloggers. Negotiate with an article’s “owner” to get this.  Monitor your articles with a tool that s you (e.g. trackengine, changenotes, urlywarning, changedetect). Don’t just rely on Wikipedia’s “Watch” function  Flow PageRank internally with Disambiguation pages, Redirects, Categories  Make friends. They will back you up in AfDs  Don’t edit anonymously from work. (Have you heard of WikiScanner??)

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Wikis  Plenty of other wikis out there that are a lot more edit- friendly than Wikipedia –ShopWiki –The NewPR Wiki (thenewpr.com) –WordPress Codex ( –Conference wikis (e.g. Web20Expo)  Some even pass link juice!

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Digg  Strip away all commercial links during the initial Digg swarm  Friend popular Diggers. Better yet, get a popular Digger to submit your story. –Consult the Top 100 list of Diggers at DiggAnalytics.com  Time your presence on the Digg front page for daylight hours  Craft a killer title using this formula from Muhammad Saleem: number + adjective + key phrase –E.g. “13 Most Chilling Haunted Hotels” or “16 Incredibly Unconventional Hotel Rooms”

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

StumbleUpon  Force your friends to stumble your stuff using the “Send to” function in the StumbleUpon toolbar –They have to view your URL before they can continue with their random channel surfing

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts YouTube  With most popular YouTube promotions, YouTube gets the links and the original site usually does not. Stack the odds more in your favor by creating a microsite and making the microsite URL your username. –E.g. “willitblend.com” is BlendTec’s username  Use as many tags as possible while still being accurate  Run a contest and recruit popular YouTube users to enter. Their video submission will get pushed out to all their subscribers –E.g. Intuit’s “Tax Rap” contest

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts YouTube  Be creative but unpolished –Eepybird’s Bellagio Fountain of Diet Coke + Mentos –BlendTec’s “Will It Blend?” –Heroes spoof commercial (“Zeroes”) – an NBC creation –John Cleese Backup Trauma webisode –Intuit’s “Tax Rap” content –SolarDave’s SMX spoof with cut-out figures as the actors –“Hat Swap” spoof of “Wife Swap” reality show w/ SEOs

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

MySpace  You need an impressive number of friends. Establish critical mass by friending bands, models (male and female), fiction authors, actors, go-go dancers, DJs, etc. They’ll take anybody! –Find them using the “Search Profiles for People with Similar Career Interests” as part of MySpace’s Search function. –Then remove them later on when you no longer need them.  Long page load time will drive your profile visitors away. Disable HTML in your comments so users can’t fill your page with slow- loading pictures of LOLcats etc.

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

LinkedIn  Add links to your website, blog, and one other URL and select “Other” so you can specify the anchor text. Don’t use the pre-selected categories “My website” etc.  Add a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) or two to your network. –i.e. a “promiscuous sneezer” (in Seth Godin-speak) –Use the TopLinked.com list. e.g. Flip Filipowski  Add your address to your “professional headline” so folks 4+ degrees away don’t have to waste an InMail to contact you  Post a “question” to LinkedIn Answers that serves your own purposes –e.g. “We’re looking to hire an SEO analyst and are willing to pay whatever it takes to get a top-notch person. What job boards do you recommend?”

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Flickr  Always use tags – as many as possible while still being accurate. Put multiple word tags in surrounded by quotation marks “”  Make descriptive titles for your photos  Create thematic Sets for your photos  Links on profile, set and collection pages are not nofollowed  If the photo is location specific, go into Flickr’s tools and geotag the picture –Go into the Flickr set tools, and locate the location on the Yahoo! Map, then drag the picture onto the map to pinpoint its location  Creative Commons license your photo and put how you want the user to credit you in your photo’s description

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Meetup.com  Get involved with local Meetups and get your meetup.com member profile page linked from the meetup’s page, which will pass juice to your profile then on to your site  Actually there are many social sites with profile pages that pass link juice... – offering-profile-links.html

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts offering-profile-links.html

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blogs  First, get involved via comments and build rapport  Careful about making the commenter name keyword-rich  Comment on blogs that “dofollow” comment links –e.g. Mark Cuban’s Blogmaverick.com, Rimm-Kaufman Group’s  Submit to blog carnivals. Host one (requires that you have a blog). Start a new one. – secret-weapon

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blogs  Be a contributor to a group blog (e.g. BusinessBlogConsulting.com, Shop.org Blog)  Be a guest blogger on someone else’s blog (e.g. TechGazing.com*, Problogger.net)*  A Tip Jar indicates the blogger is desperate for cash

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Real-World Networking  Build relationships with bloggers by networking with them at blogger conferences, unconferences and meetups  Register and attend conferences that link to their attendees (e.g. WordCamp, Gnomedex)  Contribute to conference wikis (where you’ve attended!)  Give free talks at libraries, campuses (e.g. Stanford TechBriefings)  Get involved with local Meetups and get your meetup.com member profile page linked from the meetup’s page, which will pass juice to your profile then on to your site  Invite W3C to speak. Get a link to your event on

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Twitter  Create a microsite dedicated to Twitter –E.g. twitter.zappos.com  Circumvent spam filters and inbox clutter using direct messages  Influence the top influencers in your Twitter network by influencing those in common with you –Identify the common “friends” with tweetwheel.com –Send your request as a direct message

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts offering-profile-links.html

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts offering-profile-links.html

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts In Summary  Focus on the right keywords  Focus on site architecture  Have great keyword-rich content  Build links (particularly through link baiting & social media), and thus your PageRank  Spend that PageRank wisely within your site  Measure the right things  Continually monitor, benchmark, & don’t be afraid to test

© 2009 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Further Reading    blogs.cnet.com/seosearchlight  google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769    blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/default.aspx   googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com    

© 2009 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, your request to  To contact me: