Six Delicious Morsels from the World of Search Marketing Personalization Wikipedia's Success SEO Blowback Power of the Widget Biggest Mistake in Linkbaiting Freemium Revenue

How Personalization Will Impact Search Marketers ● Sites that users “use” and “enjoy” will garner more traffic ● Large domains that encompass a wide swath of subjects will outrank smaller sites ● Spam & manipulative tactics will lose ground Don't Be Scared Be Prepared

Why Wikipedia is So Successful in the SERPs (Part 1) ● Basic SE-Friendliness (titles, headers, URLs, etc) ● Internal Link Referencing Gone Wild (every relevant mention of a subject links to a single, canonical page on the subject)

Why Wikipedia is So Successful in the SERPs (Part 2) ● Linking to Wikipedia is en vogue because the content format is consistent, the site doesn't display ads and it's easy to find a page on any subject ● SEs currently love big domains with lots of links – it's how Wikipedia content that has virtually no inlinks can still outrank well-linked-to resources from competitors

The “Anti-SEO” Mindset Online ● Members of social communities think SEO = Spam ● Where to be Cautious:  Digg  Reddit  Netscape  Slashdot  Tech Bloggers ● Safe Havens  Techmeme  Newsvine  Squidoo

The Power of the Widget (Part 1) Widgets let your users spread your brand The Best Are: ● Interactive ● Give Links ● Customizable ● Easy to Use

The Power of the Widget (Part 2) Thousands of Links are now under your control – anchor text, link location, message, landing page, etc. Widgets are free ads that others elect to put on their sites

The Biggest Mistake in Linkbaiting Targeting the Wrong Audience There are those who linkAnd those who don't

Freemium – The Best Revenue Model in “Web 2.0” ● Give away some content/ services for free and offer upgraded items for a fee ● Provides the best of both worlds: free content earns links and midshare, while paid services provide a revenue stream ● E.G. Wufoo, Skype, Wordtracker, FeedBurner, Last.fm, and even SEOmoz

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