© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Searching for Users: SEO as an Engine for Customer Acquisition
By Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
Light on content, but on page 1 in
Google for “silver earrings”
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Their CEO’s blog accounts for over
13% of online sales
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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%2Fwww.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 [email protected]
Not so good title – where’s the phrase “credit card”?
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
No link text or body copy
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
No link text or body copy
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Duplicate pages
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Still feeling good about being at the bottom of page 1?
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Search listings – 1 good,1 lousy
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Title tags the same
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Spider unfriendly URL structures
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Yikes! Sears.com home page PageRank score looks abysmal
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Phew! – Sears.com true home page PageRank score
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
BMW.de hosted many
“doorway pages” like
this one
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
“Sneaky redirect” sent searchers to
this page
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Hidden link – in the “All” of
“All Rights Reserved” –
leads to a hallway page
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Hallway page – not meant for
human consumption –
Let’s start scrolling…
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Everything still looks copasetic,
until…
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
A-ha, spider food
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
Screenfuls and
screenfuls of it!
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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)[email protected] voice 865.637.2438
------------------------------------------------------Overview of StormwaterAuthority.org
Source: Eric Ward
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
SEOBook’s Backlink Analyzer
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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
– <a href=“/privacy-policy.htm” rel=“nofollow”>
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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. date-
based archives)
© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
To contact Stephan, email [email protected]
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