Searching for Users - SEO as an Engine for Traffic

Searching for Users: SEO as an Engine for Customer Acquisition By Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com The 4 Big Keys to SEO  Keywords – Target the words that your target market uses.  Content – It’s got to be great, unique, linkworthy, fresh, keyword-focused content.  Links – No links? No rankings.  Site structure – It’s essential you get the technical details right (redirects, HTML templates, URLs, internal linking structure) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com SEO Fundamentals  Tried-and-true SEO tactics – – – – – 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  Synergistic effect of natural + paid search © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com SEO Fundamentals  Links (internal and inbound, along with the anchor text) beat out content  Link building, link baiting, blogging, SMO are crucial SEO activities – SMO (Social Media Optimization) = infiltrating Digg.com, del.icio.us popular, Netscape.com, reddit, StumbleUpon, Wikipedia,… – “A rising tide lifts all boats” © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Light on content, but on page 1 in Google for “silver earrings” © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Their CEO’s blog accounts for over 13% of online sales © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com SEO Fundamentals  Rewrite your URLs – Avoid ? & = characters, minimize directories, include keywords, hyphens preferred over underscores  Rejig your hierarchical internal linking structure  Optimize your HTML templates and CSS – Reduce code bloat, separate out “presentation layer” from “content layer”, image replacement, optimized elements like H1 © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com SEO Strategies for Your “Head” Terms  Focus a page on no more than 3 keyword themes – place targeted term in the title tag, H1 tag, & high up in the body copy  Build link gain (PageRank) to that page through internal links & inlinks  Consistent keyword-rich anchor text from internal links  For deep inlinks, vary the anchor text a bit © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com SEO Strategies for “The Long Tail”       Focus on unbranded search markets Leverage website scale and brand strength Employ testable strategies that scale Treat consumers as co-creators Measure against a new set of KPIs Grow your long tail of search © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com The “Freeloaders” on Your Payroll  Most merchants have 80%+ of their pages driving no search traffic  Most don't even know this, or why it is a problem (no javascript based analytics package will tell them this either)  It’s a red light that they lack a long tail of unbranded keyword traffic  The # of searches for unbranded keywords is nearly 40x as great as searches for the brand name (put another way, 97x the # of pages onsite)  Tapping that opportunity means leveraging the size of the website and the brand strength to convert unbranded searches into clicks  How to achieve this tail? © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Scalable Long Tail SEO Strategies  Mass optimization: – Single techniques capable of creating cascading effects throughout large websites – template pages for instance  Rewriting URLs: – Simple and static have profound impact on PageRank™ and traffic  “Thin Slicing”: – Touching key elements across thousands of pages quickly, monitoring, and expanding based on results © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Scalable Long Tail Strategies - Web 2.0  User generated content (e.g., wikipedia) – Freely append searcher vocabulary into your website  Tagging and social bookmarking (e.g., Flickr, del.icio.us) – Listen and create feedback loops – using search terms – Use cloud taxonomy to flatten your structure using good link text  RSS and Blogging – Long tail is driven by efficient distribution of pages  Create link bait rather than soliciting link targets  Provide lists of most searched keywords  Long tail optimization means outsourcing … to your users © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Gone Off the Rails  Misfires, mistakes, etc. often occur because your developers, sysadmins, or marketers “didn’t know what they didn’t know”  Examples… © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Not Spider Friendly  GET http://www.bananarepublic.com --> 302 Moved Temporarily  GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do --> 302 Moved Temporarily  GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do?targetURL=http%3A%2F%2 Fwww.bananarepublic.com%2Fbrowse%2Fhome.do&CookieSet=Set --> 302 Moved Temporarily  GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/cookieFailure.do --> 200 OK © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Not so good title – where’s the phrase “credit card”? © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com No link text or body copy © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com No link text or body copy © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Duplicate pages © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Still feeling good about being at the bottom of page 1? Search listings – 1 good, 1 lousy © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Title tags the same © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Spider unfriendly URL structures © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Yikes! Sears.com home page PageRank score looks abysmal © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Phew! – Sears.com true home page PageRank score © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com BMW.de hosted many “doorway pages” like this one © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com “Sneaky redirect” sent searchers to this page © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Hidden link – in the “All” of “All Rights Reserved” – leads to a hallway page © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Hallway page – not meant for human consumption – Let’s start scrolling… © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Everything still looks copasetic, until… © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com A-ha, spider food © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Screenfuls and screenfuls of it! © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Find Link Targets  Review links of competitive sites, sites in your keyword market – Use tools like the ones just mentioned – Check sites with high rankings for relevant keywords – The fewer the number of links on their page, the better  Review links to your site; look for opportunities to get the link text revised © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Request Links  NOT: – – – – “Hi, Let’s swap links!” “I’ve already linked to you.” “Great site!” “You already link to our competitor XYZ.com and we offer a better product.” – “Please use the following text in your link…”  Maybe? – ”Hi, found a broken link on _____. btw, you might want to add xyz.com as a link.”  What then?… © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Hi Lois, My name is Eric Ward, and I am working with StormwaterAuthority.org to help them announce the launch of their new web site located at http://www.stormwaterauthority.org I am hoping you will consider mentioning or linking to the StormwaterAuthority.org site on your Water and Wastewater Engineering page at http://www.library.umaine.edu/science/waterresources.htm I have included a brief overview of the site below, and should you need anything at all I am a real person and actually reply to email. You can also contact me by phone. Thank you for your time and consideration. Regards, Eric Ward (On behalf of StormwaterAuthority.org) eric@ericward.com voice 865.637.2438 ------------------------------------------------------www.netconcepts.com © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Overview of StormwaterAuthority.org sspencer@netconcepts.com Source: Eric Ward More on Links...      Some links get “discounted” Anchor text opportunities Linking best & worst practices Blogging for links “Baiting” for links © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Watch Out For…  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 Links contained on a page called links.htm / links.asp Links with the exact same anchor text Remember: the more links on the linking page, the less PageRank you’ll get © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Update Link Text  Link text (anchor text) is critical for SEO  Review your existing links and link text – SEOBook’s Back Link Analyzer tool  Are the keywords you are targeting in the link text?  Contact webmasters, particularly those who you have a relationship with & those with the most valuable links © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com SEOBook’s Backlink Analyzer © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Best Practices: Linking  Offer link-worthy content. Keep it fresh.  Try to get good keywords in the link text  Make it easily shareable (RSS feeds, Email to a friend, Submit to Digg/delicious/etc.)  Simple keyword-rich urls encourage deep linking  When you redesign your site, keep your old URLs or 301 redirect them to the new URLs  “Nofollow” any links you don’t want to spend PageRank on – © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Worst Practices: Linking  Participating in “link farms” or FFA (“Free For All”) sites – Hallmarks of a link farm = more urls per page & less organization      Splogging, comment spamming, guestbook spamming Linking to “bad neighborhoods” Hiding links Hoarding all your PageRank Unnatural link structures – Too much symmetry, link text never varies, or otherwise “engineered”  Acquiring links from sites all on the same IP block  Acquiring links only from the same TLD (.com, .org, .edu, etc) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Blogs  Search engines – and Google in particular – love blogs  Inherently link-rich – – – – – “Hat tips” – part of blog etiquette Blogrolls RSS feeds Trackbacks Comments  The dark side of the blogosphere: – Blog comment spam – Splogs (spam blogs) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Blog SEO  Don’t leave title tags to be auto-generated. Use the “SEO Title Tag” WordPress plugin  Don’t squander your “crawl equity” by letting pages get indexed that don’t deserve to be (“Email this page” etc.)  Having multiple “homes” for your blog  Utilize “Optional Excerpt” to minimize duplicate content  Use rel=nofollow to direct PageRank flow (e.g. datebased archives) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Blog SEO      Intro copy on category & tag pages with sticky posts Optimal URLs (short, not too many directories) Multiple RSS feeds, optimized Hosting blog/feed URLs on a domain you don’t own Use optimal anchor text when linking internally © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Link Bait  Offer a niche-specific blogroll, tool, How-To, or compilation of news stories  Post a scoop  Expose a story as flawed or a fraud  Be a contrarian about a story, product, or prominent blogger’s opinion  Be humorous. Good topics include a bizzare pic of your subject, “10 things I hate about…”, and “You know you’re a when…” Source: Performancing © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Link Bait  Publish or commission some original research  Creative-Commons-license photos you made of an event you’re blogging about  Make available for free a theme, plugin or piece of software  Start a meme that others can replicate and that links back to you (e.g. buttons/stickers/tools for bloggers/webmasters to post on their sites, contests, quizzes, surveys, etc.) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Get Creative  Give awards / recognition – Badges with link text underneath  Allow webmasters to republish your articles – Require a link in your byline  Publish unique content – Podcasts (e.g. SteveSpangler.com) – Screencasts (use TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio) – Wikis (e.g. SEOGlossary.com) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Get Creative  Offer useful tools for webmasters, such as… – Hit counters • E.g. NOT like 123counters.com – Weather stickers • E.g. Wunderground.com, SuperPages.com – RSS feeds • Lottery winning numbers from SuperPages.com © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Get Creative  Start a blog  Give testimonials – E.g. www.wordpress.org/about/testimonials – E.g. www.keyworddiscovery.com/testimonials.html  Sponsor a nonprofit – E.g. Kohl’s supports the Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association  Leverage your affiliates – Get a straight link (e.g. from Legal Notices page) – 301 redirect © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com The 4 Big Keys to SEO  Keywords – Target the words that your target market uses.  Content – It’s got to be great, unique, linkworthy, fresh, keyword-focused content.  Links – No links? No rankings.  Site structure – It’s essential you get the technical details right (redirects, HTML templates, URLs, internal linking structure) © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Q&A!  For an ebook on Google power searching, SEO checklists & worksheets, an audio recording of an interview with Matt Cutts of Google, and an audio recording, executive summary & transcript of an SEO thought leaders teleconference, e-mail your request to seo@netconcepts.com  To contact Stephan, email stephan@netconcepts.com © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com