© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Best-Kept Secrets for Search Marketing Success Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Advanced SEO: Part Art, Part Science  Stay tuned for the tools and tactics that most search agencies won’t reveal…  These tools and tactics will be broken into three major categories –Technical Optimization –Content Optimization –Link Building

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Technical Optimization

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Grouped Google Results  Science: –Finding the true position of an indented result by appending &num=9 to the URL of the Google SERP, then &num=8 etc. –  Art: –Knocking out your competitor’s indented second listing

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts This isn’t really #3

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Nope, not yet

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Gone! It’s true position was #9

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO the title of #12 to bump it up to page 1 – it will be grouped to #2. Then link to #11 and bump it up to page 1 to knock #4 to page 2

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Indexation  Science: –Essential tools: Yahoo Site Explorer, Netconcepts URL Checker, Netconcepts Product Page Checker ( –Set Google preferences to “English Only” to get a more realistic number, minus pages not crawled –XML Sitemaps generators  Art: –Figuring out the main indexation threshold for your level of PageRank/authority

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Results estimate decreased by 2/3rds

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Flowing PageRank  Science: –Using rel=nofollow on low-value internal links –SEOChat PageRank Search tool –SEOChat PageRank Lookup tool –SEO for Firefox tool  Art: –Knowing which of your pages to nofollow –Iterative testing

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Redirects  Science: –When moving sites –For canonicalization –“Conditional” redirects?  Art: –When to use 301 and when to use 404 or 302

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Cloaking  Science: –Viewed cloaked content with Google Translate and translate it from English to English &oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result  Art: –Good cloaking vs bad cloaking For bots only, drop tracking tags and other superfluous parameters from the URLs of your links Use “user agent” detection and don’t “noarchive” the pages to obscure what you’re doing

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Supplemental Index  Science: –Figuring out which pages are and are not in “Supplemental hell” site: -allinurl: –Popping pages out of supplemental with robots.txt disallow, rel=nofollow, internal linking, link building

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Duplicate Content  Science: –Scanning for duplicate content –Blocking duplicate content without blackholing the PageRank (i.e. disallowing with rel=nofollow) –If using tracking parameters in URLs, use 301 redirects or JavaScript – Content-Penalty/  Art: –Augment and/or revise duplicate content with APIs, unique titles/metadata,

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts CSS  Science: –Reordering content above navigation –Image replacement technique –Progressive enhancement for Flash & AJAX – Harness-the-Power-of-CSS/  Art: –Design worthy of CSS Zen Garden

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Content Optimization

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Research  Science: –Mastering tools such as KeywordDiscovery, Google Suggest, Spyfu,WordTracker, Google Trends, Googspy, SEOSleuth, Yahoosearchranking.com  Art: –Working in misspellings without looking stupid –Thinking like a thesaurus - finding related words that machines can’t

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Keyword Density/Prominence  Science: –Ranks.nl  Art: –Increasing keyword density and prominence in a way that looks natural to the engines and reads well

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts “Thin Slicing”  Science: –Mass edit admin –Mechanical Turk  Art: –Separating the wheat from the chaff

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Link Building

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Reverse Engineer Competitors  Science: –Yahoo Site Explorer –link: on Google & on Google Blog Search –Backlink Analyzer or Neat-o tool  Art: –Negotiating links from the same sites –Outing competitors’ dodgy link schemes

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts High-Value Link Targets  Science: –Build spiders to find sites with super high PageRank, 1 click away from Google,.edu or.gov, high Alexa ranked –Avoiding situations that erode the value (e.g. reciprocal, in footer, site-wide, adjacent to paid links, too many links on page) –Use tools like SEOMoz Page Strength tool, SEO for Firefox, SEO-Links Firefox extension  Art: –Identifying sites with a propensity to give link love (e.g. acknowledging patrons/sponsors) –Crafting approaches & incentives –Buy them

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Mining Your Own Links  Science: –Locating inbound links with poor anchor text with BLA or Neat-o  Art: –Negotiating with these linkers to change the anchor text. Pull some favors with friends who link to you. It helps to be a blogger when reaching out to other bloggers.

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Wikipedia  Science: –Wikiscanner –Article monitoring (e.g. trackengine, changenotes, urlywarning, changedetect, watch function) –Building up a long & virtuous contribution history –Flowing pagerank internally with Disambiguation pages, Redirects, Categories  Art: –Negotiating with an article’s “owner” –Making friends who will back you up in AfDs –Earning Barnstar awards & adminship status

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Digg  Science: –Stripping away all commercial links during the initial Digg swarm –Friending popular Diggerspopular Diggers –Timing your presence on the Digg front page for daylight hours  Art: –Crafting a killer title –Getting a powerful Digger to submit your story

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts YouTube  Science: –Proper formatting –Tagging –Title and description –Channels  Art: –Entertainment value –Finding that viral hook

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts MySpace  Science: –Configuration of your profile and page (e.g. profile type) –Establishing critical mass with #s of Friends by targeting bands  Art: –Getting your brand in the URL –Creating a viral MySpace avatar, comment graphic, layout etc. –Having a profile layout that differentiates you without killing usability

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Flickr  Science: –Tagging –Title and description –Albums / photosets –Creative Commons licensing –Commenting (note: links in comments no longer pass juice)  Art: –Photo quality –Viral hook

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blogs  Science: –Knowing which blogs pass PageRank to commenters (e.g. Mark Cuban’s) –Decoupling your blog’s title tags from the post titles (e.g. “SEO Title Tag” WordPress plugin) –Using “Sticky” posts to improve keyword prominence on your blog  Art: –Courting bloggers –Commenting in ways that add to the conversation so they get approved and stay

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts More SEO Tools  For link analysis and PageRank –TouchGraph –Live PageRank –WebmasterEyes –Google Webmaster Central –Thumbshots Ranking tool –SEOpen

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts More SEO Tools  Technical optimization –User Agent Switcher –SwitchProxy –Scrutinizer –Copyscape –Poodle Predictor –Xenu Link Sleuth –Robot Replay –CrazyEgg –What’s That Site Running –Wayback Machine

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts More SEO Tools  Other reporting –Alexa –DigitalPoint Keyword Rankings –Urltrends –Hitwise ($$)  List and links at – –

© 2008 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, or give me your business card  Any questions come to you later, contact me: