1. Best-Kept Secrets for Search Marketing Success
Stephan Spencer,
Founder & President, Netconcepts

2. 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

3. Technical Optimization

4. 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

5. This isn’t really #3

6. Nope, not yet

7. Gone! It’s true position was #9

8. 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

9. Indexation Science: Art:
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

12. Results estimate decreased by 2/3rds

13. Flowing PageRank Science: Art:
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

14. 301 Redirects Science: Art: When moving sites For canonicalization
“Conditional” redirects?
Art:
When to use 301 and when to use 404 or 302

15. Cloaking Science: Art:
Viewed cloaked content with Google Translate and translate it from English to English
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

16. 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

17. Duplicate Content Science: Art: 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
Art:
Augment and/or revise duplicate content with APIs, unique titles/metadata,

18. CSS Science: Art: Reordering content above navigation
Image replacement technique
Progressive enhancement for Flash & AJAX
Art:
Design worthy of CSS Zen Garden

19. Content Optimization

20. Keyword Research Science: Art:
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

21. Keyword Density/Prominence
Science:
Ranks.nl
Art:
Increasing keyword density and prominence in a way that looks natural to the engines and reads well

22. “Thin Slicing” Science: Art: Mass edit admin Mechanical Turk
Separating the wheat from the chaff

23. Link Building

24. 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

25. 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

30. Mining Your Own Links Science: Art:
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.

32. Wikipedia Science: Art: 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

33. Digg
Science:
Stripping away all commercial links during the initial Digg swarm
Friending popular 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

34. YouTube Science: Art: Proper formatting Tagging Title and description
Channels
Art:
Entertainment value
Finding that viral hook

35. 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

36. Flickr Science: Art: Tagging Title and description Albums / photosets
Creative Commons licensing
Commenting (note: links in comments no longer pass juice)
Art:
Photo quality
Viral hook

37. 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

38. More SEO Tools For link analysis and PageRank TouchGraph Live PageRank
WebmasterEyes
Google Webmaster Central
Thumbshots Ranking tool
SEOpen

39. 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

40. More SEO Tools Other reporting List and links at Alexa
DigitalPoint Keyword Rankings
Urltrends
Hitwise ($$)
List and links at

41. 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: