SMX Advanced 2009 Seattle – SEO Track – SEO Ranking Factors In 2009 Rand Fishkin

Post from Search Engine Optimizician.
How much does the “H1″ tag really matter, versus the number of links pointing at a domain?
Do “authority” sites always have an advantage over other sites with less reputation?
Is brand recognition now a bigger issue?

On and off-the-page factors that influence web search, what remains useful and what new signals are growing in importance. Part 1 of 3

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

Search Ranking Factors Survey
Answered by 70 Top SEOs Worldwide

Keyword Usage

• Keyword use anywhere in the title tag
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Keyword as the first word or words of the title tag
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Keyword in the Root Domain
  (very strong to moderate impact)
• Keyword in subdomain
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page folder
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page name
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page’s query
  (weak impact)
• Keyword in page’s extension
  (not used)
• Keyword in description tag
  (weak impact)
• Keyword in meta keywords
  (not used)
• Keyword anywhere in the “H1″ tag
  (significant to moderate impact)
• Keyword as first words in the “H1″ tag
  (significant to weak impact)
• Keyword in other “H” tags [H2-6]
  (moderate impact)

H1 Tags (Low Correlation w/ Rankings).
Alt Text (Higher Correlation w/ Rankings).
Keyword in URL (Very High Correlation).
Keyword Location (Data Says Closer is Much Better).

While I agree with most of the statements above I would question the “H1 Tags (Low Correlation w/ Rankings)”. Just because they aren’t used properly doesn’t mean that if they were used correctly they wouldn’t have more of a correlation.

Non-Link Factors

• Freshness and recentcy of page creation
  (significant impact)
• Historical content changes
  (significant to weak impact)
• Advertising on the page
  (not used)
• Google AdSence on the page
  (not used)
• Meta description tag
  (moderate to not used)
• Query parameters in the URL vs. static URL format
  (moderate to weak impact)
• Substantive, unique content on the page
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Links pointing to other URLs on the domain
  (significant to weak impact)
• External-pointing links on page
  (weak impact)
• HTML validation to W3C standards
  (weak impact)
• Ratio of code to text in HTML
  (weak impact)
• Use of Flash elements or other plug-in content
  (not used)

Substantive, Unique Content is Very Important.
W3C Validation Not Very Important.
Code to Text Ratio Not Very Important.
Static URLs Somewhat Better Than Dynamic.

Once again I will have to disagree with W3C Validation as not being “Very Important”. I will agree while it is not as important as some of the other on-page factors I feel it is of value. See the Matt Cutts video clip.

Importance of Link Metrics

• Global link popularity of the domain
  (very strong impact)
• Trustworthiness of domain
  (very strong impact)
• Link diversity of the domain
  (very strong impact)
• Links form hubs or authorities in a topic specific neighborhood
  (very strong impact)

PageRank may be important, but TBPR not a great predictor.
Domain Authority may be important, but metrics need work.
TrustRank concepts may be important, but metrics need work.
Domain Diversity may be more important than experts think.

Interesting, I think I am in agreement with all of these statements.

Subdomains vs. Root Domains
Subdomains likely DO NOT inherit all of the ranking benefits of the Root Domain, but neither are they completely separate entities.

Google’s Algorithm
Links, as they pertain to the domain and the individual page, are vastly superior in importance to the page’s content.

Geographic Ranking Factors For Country-Specific Targeting

• ccTLD of the root domain
  (very strong impact)
• Geographic location of the host IP
  (significant impact)
• Links from other domains targeted to the country or region
  (significant impact)
• Registration of the site with Google Local
  (moderate impact)
• Address associated with the registration of the domain
  (weak impact)
• Address in on-page text content
  (moderate impact)
• Geographical location of visitors to the site
  (weak impact)
• Geo-Targeting preference set inside Google Webmaster Tools
  (moderate impact)
• Geo-Tagging of pages via meta data
  (moderate impact)
• Content language used on site
  (significant impact)
• Manual review/targeting by Google
  (very strong impact)

Country TLD
Language
Links
Host IP Address
Manual Review
GG WM Tools Geographic Target Settings
Registration with Google Local

Links will decline in importance, but remain powerful, as newer signals rise from usage data, social graph data and other sources to replace them.

So there you have it. My notes and views on Rand’s presentation at SMX Advanced in Seattle June 2009.
Parts 2 and 3 featuring the presentations from Laura Lippay and Marty Weintraub are in the hopper.

Late,
Gary Pool

Improve Search Engine Rankings – SEO Ranking Factors is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Oh no! Not another report from SMX Advanced in Seattle, June ’08. Everyone else reported on the sessions and Amplify-Interactive has a very good detailed one! I have decided to report on the Expo Hall.

As I walked through the paths in the expo hall during the rush of the lunch break I couldn’t help but wonder “what goes on at these booths while we are supposed to be learning all these black hat techniques?” I actually made my way through each and every booth. The booth that was the most active always seemed to be the SEOmoz booth.

I had filmed an interview with seo/greatscott-smx-advanced-seomoz-rand-fishkin/”>Scott Willoughby earlier at the SEOmoz booth while the sessions were going on and I went back later when the hall floor was over-flowing with attendees.

I never saw Rand Fishkin sitting down, unless he was at a computer, filming Whiteboard Wednesday, waiting to be introduced, or in a panel. He even ate his lunch standing up taking bites between questions from Matt Cutts all the while.

I shot a short video of Rand on his time off and here it is. Rand Rocks!

The rest of the booths were interesting too but they didn’t seem to be very crowded. The only booth to give SEOmoz any competition at all was the Google or should I say “g”oogle (in honor of their new ugly favicon).

Yes, I was wearing my white hat. It warded off the black hat presence wafting through the building.

I had fun roaming the halls of the expo at SMX Advanced and met and talked to many interesting people. And like General MacArthur, I shall return.

late,
gary pool

SMX Advanced | SEOmoz | Black Hat vs White Hat is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

At SMX Social in Long Beach, California, April 22 – 23 I had the privilege of asking Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz some questions.

Rand answered candidly about such things as who was his open sharing inspiration, small business SEO and SMM, Jason Calacanis, SMX Social Long Beach, and SEOmoz surprises.

Rand was great as usual and so was SMX Social Long Beach.
Jason Calacanis, well that’s another story.

late,
gary pool

Rand Fishkin | Jason Calacanis | SMX Social is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I am sitting in the Westin Long Beach, California waiting for SMX Social to begin.

Social Media Marketing Essentials
Customers interacting with brands — that’s marketing in the 21st century. And SMM is key to fostering brand/customer conversations. This session will orient you to the world of social media. You’ll learn the leading sites, the functionality they provide, and best practices for interacting in these virtual places.

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder and CEO, SEOmoz

Fishkin’s now famous yellow shoes.
Rumor has it Puma is offering him a contract.

late,
garypool

SMX Social | Yellow Shoes | Rand Fishkin is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SEMpxd SearchFest ’08

• What I learned
• What I Heard
• What was Won

SEOmoz meets SEOPDX

Rebecca Kelley- Rand Fishkin – Gary Pool – Shirley de Rose

WOW! another SearchFest has come and gone.

And for you my faithful readers who have been trying to make sense out of my notes, have I got a deal for you! Even when I was in college I couldn’t make much sense out of my notes then either. Now you can download the actual PowerPoint presentations converted to PDF on the SEMpdx site.

This years was just fantastic Rand Fishkin was the Keynote Speaker. (Rand didn’t bring his famous yellow shoes. I really wanted a picture. He did say he would have them at SMX Social though.) I can’t wait until next year’s SEMpdx SearchFest ’09.

What I learned:

• The Six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
• 80% of the searches occur outside of the US.
• 20% of online users purchases were driven by offline channels.
• Japanese and German are time-tested pilot languages.
• The Benefits of Healthy and Vigorous Master Baiting.
• Google SERPs actually do have a page load time element
• Matt McGee’s wife got a client from posting a bunch of VHS videos on Freecycle.

What I Heard:

• Comments on how good the food was.
• How great the breakfast was especially at a GEEK event.
• Scott Hendison complaining about not wanting to stick a pin in his shirt.(Scott did commit his support for next year – as the lanyard / name tag sponsor
• Scott Hendison complaining about having to wait while they drew his beer from a tap.

What was Won:

• Rob Hegemann of Hydrabrush.com won the Search Engine Academy Pass.
• Denise Hampton of Charlton Engle Marketing won the Innotech Pass.
• Ken Whiteman of Hitchsource won the Internet Strategy Forum Summit Pass.
• Tim Williams of Vivace Interactive won 2 passes to the CCI Enterprises Poker Tourney.
• Debra Paynter of Infocus won a pass to Inverge.
• David Mihm won the SEMpdx hat…
• Gary Pool, Yes Me! I won the pass to SMX Social Media, April 22 & 23, Long Beach, CA – $1195 value! This two-day event will get me up to speed on social media and how to engage communities at social media sites.

Thanks SEMpdx SearchFest ’08,
gary pool

SEMpxd SearchFest ’08 | What I learned, Heard, and Won is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SEMpdx SearchFest ’08 was a total success. If you were there you know what I’m talking about.

SEMpdx SearchFest ’08 was put on by SEMpdx the premiere Search Engine Marketing Professionals group in Portland.

If this years SearchFest is any indication of how this event is evolving you’d better get in line for your tickets to SEMpdx SearchFest ’09 now.

Over the next few days I will be giving you a report (well at least my notes) on the sessions I attended.

Rand Fishkin – The Algorithmic Evolution of Search Engines & the Impact on SEO Campaigns

Go back in to the past to find the answers to todays questions

• late 90′s
• poor predictors
• anchor text
• hilltop
• HITS
• Local vs. Global
• Six degrees of Kevin Bacon
• TrustRank
• From Theory to Application
• The Sandbox
• Goodbye Link Farms
• The “Florida” Update
• Reciprocal Links
• Sites with Trusted Links
• Didn’t engage in link exchanges and grew up organically
• Distribution Curve for Spam
• Temporal Link Analysis
• Human Intervention [eval.human(google?).com]
• Data to Track Manipulation
• Vision Based Page Segmentation
• Paid Link Detection

Results?

• Detection gets more powerful
• Searchers happier
• Engines aren’t doing Spam detection
• Predicting what searchers want
• Branded searches
• Predictive technology
• Personalization
• Ranking Fresh Content Quickly

See the thing is…

• There is content analysis
• and user behavior
• More and more vertical inclusion
• Engines want to show the sites with the greatest number of given links

Sites least likely to have spam

The key

Engines rely on links but not every link

• editorial links
• not commercially influenced links
• bizarre link economy
• businesses need links
• those who can give links are unlikely to grant them

Linkerati are very small subset of the web as a whole
Who are the Linkerati? they have preferences cool, humorous, useful, breaking news, interesting, ego-boosting

Blogging, software, gadgets, entrepreneurship and startups, food, celebrity, small business websites

It’s all about backdoor deals

• New Generation of Marketing
• 21st century audience
• content is king
• the Axe effect
• We only insure women

Seth Godin
purple cow

businesses on the web now have 2 audiences to serve
linkerati and customers

Those that serve both audiences best

• apple
• google
• amazon
• wikipedia
• yelp

I told you I was going to give you a report via my notes not that they would be complete in any way.

late,
gary pool

SEMpdx SearchFest ’08 | Rand Fishkin Keynote is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Rand Fishkin will head the bill at Searchfest 2008, Oregon’s annual search marketing conference March 10, 2008, at the Oregon Zoo’s Cascade Crest Banquet Center.

Take a look at the agenda for SearchFest 2008. You won’t want to pass this up. Portland, Rand Fishkin: The Wizard of Moz, and Search Marketing, what else could a SEO want?

And you can still get a great bargin on your entrance to Oregon’s search event of the year.

The early bird discount prices will only be good through February first, because SEMpdx is budgeting now for headcount, catering etc. and so the sooner you get in, the more money you can save.

Last years SearchFest 2007 was outstanding and this years is going to be even better!

Just take a look at this line up:

• Paul Colligan
• Jeff Pruitt, SEMPO, iCrossing
• Stoney deGeyter
• Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
• Matt McGee
• John Andrews
• Kevin Wilk – Yahoo
• Marshall Simmonds, New York Times
• Dan Harbison, Portland Trailblazers
• Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com
• LinkShare
• Brian Schmidt – Google

Sign up today and let SEMpdx help you save money on an event that you need to attend anyway. Saving money is a GOOD thing.

late,
gary pool

Rand Fishkin at SearchFest 2008 in Portland March 10th is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Link Alternatives is the topic of Rand Fishkin‘s Whiteboard Friday – “Sir Links-A-Lot” video this week.

The topics included this week are:

Image Links

1. Link in the image tag (alt tags)
2. CSS image replacement

Form Links

1. check boxes
2. drop down menu

Solution: “noscript” tag

Frames and iframes

Solution: “noframes” tag

Links that can’t or wont be crawled

1. “javascript” (interesting mention of discovery)
2. “Flash”
3. “Java Applets”

Thanks Rand (OK and great scott! who actually did the post) this is some very good food for thought.

When creating links within a website you should be concerned about being able to get the most juice from your efforts. Remember search engine positioning is like adding feathers to a balance scale. “It takes a lot of feathers to to create weight. So make sure you can add the heaviest ones each time you place one on the balance.”

late,
gary pool

Link Juice | Link Alternatives is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Putting Pandora Back into the Box.

In this week’s Whiteboard Friday – Link Wars, Rand Fishkin discusses the “war” that happens in the spam game. He takes a look at how Google interprets link manipulation, how spammers combat this, and how webmasters should consider a link either Black Hat or White Hat.

Rand focuses on two major topics:

1. Linkbait & Badges & Viral Content are, by Nature, White Hat
2. The Goal of the Video is to Help Get a Perspective on How to Think About Links from the SE’s Perspective

In summation if you are creating Black Hat links none of this matters but if you are looking to create White Hat links:

• Would you create the link even if the search engines didn’t exist?
• Is your link wort while to the search engines?

Chalk up another one for Rand!

late,
gary pool

White Hat vs. Black Hat | Link Wars is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Keyword research is the backbone for REAL SEO.

Ever wonder how much keyword research is done with the search engines?

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz gives us a little insight with his post.

An Exhaustive List of Search Engine Based Keyword Research Data

Keyword research is very time consuming and it takes a great deal of SEO understanding.

Keyword Research Data from the Engines:

• Search Term Counts
  The numbers are not always accurate, but they can be, at the least they will give you some idea
• Intitle Counts
  intitle” at Google & Yahoo! provides results with the pages where the spacific term is used in the title tag
• Inurl Counts
  inurl” gives you the results that contain the target term or phrase in the URL
• Inanchor Counts
  inanchor will show only those pages where the target term is actually in the anchor text
• Intitle, Inurl, Inanchor Combination Counts
  The combined intitle, inanchor and inurl gives you a really good idea of how many pages are actually targeting an exact term or phrase
• Blogsearch Counts
  Blog search data is great for identifing hot topics or keywords in the blog world
• Related Terms
  Many engines offer “related” terms, including Google, Yahoo!, Ask & Vivisimo
• Common Usage & Phrase Combinations
  The * character can give you a good idea of what terms or phrases usually precede or follow a given term or phrase
• Frequency of Recent Usage
  TheGoogle date search operator, you can find how many times in the past day, week, month or year
• News Saturation
  Both Google & Yahoo! News are great places to do a bit of digging

Besides the list above there are many other tools used for keyword research.

• NicheBot
  They claim to help you drive Highly Qualified and Highly Targeted Traffic to your Website. A great keyword research solution and you can try it out for 2 weeks for only $1.
• Wordtracker
  I used this one until I found NicheBot. They have a free version but it takes a lot of time to use it.
• Google
  Even has a keyword research tool. It is free also.
• Key Word Discovery
  You can subscribe from just $49.95 per month.
• SEO Book
  Aaron Wall advertises it as The Coolest Keyword Research Tool Today! It is free
• Overture now owned by Yahoo!
  The original keyword research tool. I don’t know how much it is supported these days.

This is just a short list give me some more of your favorites.

late,
gary pool

Search Engine Based Keyword Research is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

In this weeks Whiteboard Friday Rand Fishkin from SEOMOZ hits the nail on the head. Rand discusses the Search industry and the reasons for it being there.

Rand is sporting his fresh new look direct from Montreal with a pair of glasses that can only be described as zie French fashion.

Take your own inventory evaluation.

• What are you best at?
• What do you love to do?
• What is it you are doing?
• Why are you doing that?
• What is it you would rather be doing?

late,
gary pool

Is It Time to Take SEO – SEM Inventory? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SES San Jose to follow or to nofollow that is the question.

Paid links were the most controversial topic at this years SES San Jose.

Here is a great, although 18 minute long video on Google’s paid link policy. The video is by WebProNews MC’d by Michael McDonald. The video features SEOmoz.com’s Rand Fishkin and Wolf-Howl.com’s Michael Gray. The topics: paid links and the effects of Google using paid links.

In a post by Rand, he includes an “if I were Matt Cutts” quote.

Paid links, in Google’s opinion, pollute the search results. The people on the search quality team are spending a lot of time and brainpower fighting back by detecting and devaluing paid links. Thus, if you’re a webmaster, we’d urge you not to buy links for the perceived value that you think they might provide in helping to rank your site better. We’ve got a ton of very smart people cutting off the flow of link juice from those links and you’re going to be wasting your money. If you want to buy links for traffic or branding or other marketing purposes, that’s great, but be aware that we’re not going to count them in our rankings.

In my opinion Google is just jones-ing to corner the market on the value of paid links. They sell paid links how dare anyone else be able to take advantage of this without them being able to take their slice of pie. But, this is the way you would expect a monopoly to react anyway, isn’t it?

late,
gary pool

Google | nofollow | SES is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Yet another Rand Fishkin Whiteboard Friday – “Wiki-Wiki-Wiki WHACK!”.

Rand discusses how to attack your enemies Google ranking by using Wikipedia.

Mert Sahinoglu at metroseo.com was the inspiration for this topic. Mert calls it the power of internal linking.

This is a very interesting topic and I would classify it as “Black Hat”. With that said there are still many “White Hat” lessons to be learned here.

Late,
Gary Pool

The Dark Art of Wiki-Jacking is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Rand Fishkin‘s – Whiteboard Friday – “Whatchu Talkin Bout?”

Rand deals with brand management as an answer to his directory burning a couple of weeks ago. SEOmoz had some negative threads in some of the blogs and Digitalpoint last week. Here is Rand’s answer.

Rand is the ultimate “White Hat”. He shows us just what his character is made of in this video. Rand my hat is off to you, yes it is a white hat also. Rand tells us where to go to find out what is being said about you and how to handle the rebuttal. The information Rand gives us here is inspiring.

Oh, by the way SEOmoz is hosting a Premium SEO Training Seminar on October 1st. Today is the LAST DAY to get the Early Bird Discount.

Late,
Gary Pool

Who said What? – Brand Management – Rand Fishkin is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Search Engine Marketing Professionals of Portland is an organization based in Portland, Oregon whose mission is to inform and educate area businesses on the benefits of SEM.

I attended the SEMpdx Networking Event at Paddy’s Bar & Grill (65 SW Yamhill St., Portland, OR 97204). The Topic I heard the most about was our annual event SearchFest. Last years SearchFest 2007 was an incredible event. Next Years promises to be even better.

SearchFest 2008 was a hot topic at this networking event. Some of the names I over heard being thrown around were Matt Cutts, Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, Chris Sherman, Cindy Krum, Catherine Seda, John Battelle, Heather Lloyd-Martin, Vanessa Fox, Guy Kawasaki, Scott Hendison, and Danny Sulivan.

I can’t wait for the actual lineup to be released. SearchFest 2008 will be hosted at the fantastic facilities at the Oregon Zoo. It is going to be a day long catered event. The facilities are plush and even have an open air covered patio right off the main lobby. SearchFest 2008 is scheduled to be held March 10, 2008. If you want to attend this marvelous event I would suggest you get your tickets early.

The next SEMpdx event will be the SEM Hot Seat. It will be heald Tuesday, August 14 2007, Registration & Networking: 6:00 PM, Program: 6:30 – 8:00 PM. This Hot Seat will be held at the Hotel DeLuxe (729 SW 15th Ave. Portland, OR 97205). Get real search marketing advice from experienced SEO & PPC experts. Take part in SEM Hot Seat, an intimate panel event where you’ll get real, specific search engine marketing advice tailored to your site at a bargain price. You can also just attend to hear the experts go through their paces.

I’ll see you at the SEMpdx Hot Seat

Late,
Gary Pool

SearchFest 2008 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Well Rand Fishkin is back with SEOmoz‘s Whiteboard Friday. This one was posted June 28th.

seomoz.org/users/view/63″>Rand discusses the other side of marketing, the non organic SEO stuff.

Marketing has always been marketing and that will never change. What will change is the tools that will help us do our job. If you don’t have all the tools in your arsenal maybe it is time you explore other options.

Pay close attention to the video and you will see that Rand actually got hit in the head while he was gone.

For more information on the power of subliminal suggestion and branding see The Power of Suggestion, Subliminal Marketing, and the dot com.

Late,
Gary Pool

SEO is Just Part of the Marketing Picture is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SMX Advanced Seattle, Washington, June 4, 2007

SEO, Meet SMM

SEO has a lot to gain from SMM, social media marketing. Getting your content into the major social media sites does more than provide an initial traffic jump. It can generate links or provide rankings you might not be able to tap into with your own site. In this session, SMM essentials that SEOs need to know.

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz
Cindy Krum, Senior SEO Analyst, Blue Moon Works Inc.
Todd Malicoat, Internet Marketing Consultant, Stuntdubl
Neil Patel, Author, Pronet Advertising

Rand Fishkin – Social Media Marketing vs. Viral Marketing

Web 2.0 sites and approach these sites in the desire to be part of the community. We make the Yahoo, MSN, and Ask communities work for us. This now extends to social media to leverage them for success.

• Rule the search results
• Link love.
• Traffic
• Influence the traditional media

Places you can use the above list:

1. YouTube
2. Wikipedia
3. Yahoo! answers
4. Yelp
5. LinkedIn
6. Flickr
7. Craigslist
8. Facebook
9. Amazon – blogs, lists
10. MySpace
11. Technorati
12. Judy’s Book
13. Newsvine
14. CitySearch

How well does this work?
SEOMoz has 724,200 links and a PR of 7 since launched in October 2004.

Neil Patel

Unwritten rules:

• don’t do self promotion
• add biased information
• ask friends for vote

Users will accuse you of spamming your link on all the front page stories and call you out on it.

Neil’s golden rules:

• Add tons of friends. If you submit a piece of a content and plenty of people vote on it, that means they’re interested in the stuff you’re submitting, so become their friends.
• Participate in the community. Get involved with the people who leave their AIM screenname or email in their profile
• Become a top user. You can submit stuff and get away with it. People will vote on your stuff and you’ll succeed
• Use their features against them. If they give you tools to become friends, become friends with them.
• Create a social brand. Don’t use the name like "neilpatel" all over. People might recognize you

The StumbleUpon tool and the ability to send a link to your friends that forces them to visit your page.

If you want to succeed, do what’s ethical. Develop your brand don’t jeopardize it. Think long term. Social Media isn’t a quick fix, it’s a long term strategy.

Todd Malicoat

The benefits to strategic linking with social media:

• control over
  • anchor text
  • body copy
  • theme
• opportunity for links from trusted sources
• Rankings
• traffic
• sales go up
• Squidoo

Invisible nofollows
With Digg, sometimes the links won’t follow at all.

Spam is determined by intent and extent – Size matters

• link buying vs. strategic placement
• doorway pages vs. landing pages
• social media spamming vs. social media optimization

Strategies: build reputation neighborhood which is good for reputation management, build hubs (e.g. Squidoo) with social media links, maximize the use of anchor text, and looking for social media sites.

Reputation neighborhoods sign up to everything you can find, test them and see which rank, if they are good, link to them. Build a neighborhood of sites and interlink them.

Build a hub – you can use MySpace…

Test social media sites for link value find out if the site is indexed.

1. Is the site indexed?
2. Is the page indexed?
3. Do these pages rank?
4. How many links?
5. Does the page pass on link juice?

Testing methodology:

• run a site:command on similar pages on the site
• build on the social media site filled with nonsense
• link to another nonsense page

Conclusions – Benefits: know how to use the tools.

• size matters
• intent and extent also matters
• use strategies
• experiment

Cindy Krum

Social Media for Brand Awareness

Why is social media important to your brand?
Ubiquitous adoption of web technology means your customers will demand a higher level of interaction with your brand.
Social networks have an undeniable power.
Radical transparency is the new public relations nirvana.
Social network advertising is expected to triple by 2011.

Secure your social presence:

• Research relevant social networks
• Create your own social sites
• Look for niche/vertical sites
• Blogs and forums.

Wiki sites.

• Identify existing networks for your brand and industry
• Have a strategy
• Who gets social profiles?
• Brand – products – company icons

Use social profile portals to your brand. You want people to be part of your community and to come back. Keep the information fresh and current.

Manage multiple social profiles in centralized locations. Use remote photo hosting instead of hosting on multiple sites. Leverage email functionality, blogs, and billboards.

SEO your profiles:

• use traditional SEO best practices
• focus on brand keywords
• interlink profiles to your brand sites
• initiate friending campaigns
• drive traffic to the profile/s

Empower brand evangelists – give them great stuff:

• widgets
• profile layouts
• graphics
• desktops/wallpaper
• videos
• podcasts
• special deals

Starbucks gives out a widget. You can add MySpace profiles and you can invite people to drink coffee with you. LOST also – staying on top of the buzz about the show.

• Embrace convergence
• leverage existing marketing efforts
• send TV/radio/print traffic to profile pages
• link to commercials on your profile pages
• link to information/press about the campaign from the profile

Social Network offline traffic:

• host meetups offline
• offer in-store only coupons
• use social profiles to integrate on and offline brand interaction

Social Network online traffic:

• create a social media section on your site
• link it from your homepage
• encourage visitors to add you as a friend
• promote all the cool stuff you’re giving away on your profile

Maybe I’ll see you at SMX Advanced in Seattle today!

late,
Gary

SMX Advanced | Social Marketing | SEO | MySpace | LinkedIn is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

How to use your link juice!

Have you ever wondered what a long tail search term is?

Just what is SEO Architecture?

How do they work together?

The head of the search term is the most broad, most searched term.
The tail or long tail is what you wind up with as you enter more terms to refine your search.

SEO Architecture is the structure of the site, organized and built on your keywords and keyword phrases.

The Pyramid Theme is the perfect example of how long tail search terms and SEO architecture work together. At the top you have the page/pages with the most searched terms. as you move down the pyramid you get the pages with the less searched terms but the most specific.

Why are long tail search terms so important?
The searchers are farther along the buying cycle when they are using the long tail search terms. When they are using the more searched terms (more generic) they aren’t even kicking the tires yet. They are just driving slowly by the lot.

Would you like more information on Long Tail Search?

Watch this video from SEOmoz.

This is Rand Fishkin‘s Whiteboard Friday titled “Chasing Your Tail“.
Also included is an apology for the old information given in last weeks Whiteboard Friday.

I hope you understand a little more about Seo, Seo Architecture, and Long Tail Search Terms. For more information please visit White Rose Productions.

late,
Gary

Seo, Seo Architecture, and Long Tail Search Terms is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Everybody’s talking about “Supplemental Hell” now days, with Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg’s very biased article “Condemned To Google Hell” this week, Rand is jumping on the bandwagon with his Whiteboard Friday this week. Rand also gives us some secret information on the topic shh!

Whiteboard Friday – “Supplementary My Dear Watson” from SEOmoz and Rand Fishkin.

Some thoughts from Matt Cuts:

I’d agree with most of your video and your bullet points, but lean more toward Michael’s viewpoint on bullet point #2; duplicate content doesn’t make you more likely to have pages in the supplemental index in my experience. It could be a symptom but not a cause, e.g. lots of duplicate content implies lots of pages, and potentially less PageRank for each of those pages. So trying to surface an entire large catalog of pages would mean less PageRank for each page, which could lead to those pages being less likely to be included in our main web index. I’m not aware of an explicit mechanism whereby duplicate content is more likely to be in our supplemental results, but I’m also happy to admit that as supplemental results are different from webspam, I’m not the expert at Google on every aspect of supplemental results.

One fine point to make: when people see the “show duplicate results” link at the end of search results and click it to add “&filter=0″ as an extra parameter, the new results you see are not all from the supplemental results. Lemme see if I can find a query to demonstrate that. Ah, here we are, the first one I tried. [site:mattcutts.com foxmarks] returns one result. If I click to see more results, that post has also been indexed at other urls, but at least two of the extra urls are in our main web index, not the supplemental index.

Maybe it’s not really Google Hell after all, just purgatory?

late,
Gary

Google’s Supplemental Hell Exposed? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Linkbait.

Is Linkbait dead as far as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is concerned?

Linkbait is and should be a natural progression of developing a website. If you aren’t building your site wider and deeper it is dead and static. As you develop width and depth to your site you are naturally developing linkbait. I feel Rand does a really great job of explaining this in the video below.

Rand Fishkin responds to Jen Slegg’s post about the impending death of linkbait by explaining how linkbait can and should be considered a natural component of a mainstream organic marketing campaign.

Make sure and watch the video past the closing credits for a pretty good senior moment out-take.
How old is Rand anyway?

late,
Gary

Rand Explains why Linkbait should be considered Natural Organic Marketing is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

If you are looking for some good SEO – SEM Google information this video is a very good source.

SEOmoz | I Tie Up Mike McDonald & Interview Vanessa Fox… Again.

Twenty-Eight Minutes… More than a full TV show worth of content, in-jokes and Google tips from a conversation with Vanessa Fox from…

The information in the video includes:

• Google Base Listings
• Sitemaps for Google News
• New Sitemaps.org Iniatitives
• New Functionality for Webmaster Central
• Orphaned Pages in Sitemaps
• Search Results in the Google Search Results
• Moving Sites and Avoiding the Temporary Loss of Rankings

And a lot more.

If you have a website or manage websites, work in the SEO or SEM world you have to see this video provided by Rand Fishkin.

late,
Gary

Rand Fishkin Ties Up Mike McDonald & Interviews Vanessa Fox… Again. is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Yesterday SEOmoz released their new version of Ranking Factors.

If you are interested in getting more search traffic to your site or search engine optimization as a topic this post by Rand Fishkin is a must read.

In August, 2005, SEOmoz launched the first series of ranking factors. We asked a dozen folks in the SEO world to vote on the importance of over 100 unique factors surmised to be part of the search engines’ ranking algorithms. Today, we’ve released a new version that addresses many of the issues that frustrated users of the first version and updates the series to modern times.

Here are 2 lists for you to compare the Ranking factors from both series.

Top 10 Ranking Factors in 2005:

1. Title Tag (4.57)
2. Anchor Text of Links (4.46)
3. Keyword Use in Document Text (4.38)
4. Accessibility of Document (4.3)
5. Links to Document from Site-Internal Pages (4.15)
6. Primary Subject Matter of Site – (4.00)
7. External Links to Linking Pages (3.92)
8. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community (3.77)
9. Global Link Popularity of Site (3.69)
10. Keyword Spamming (3.69)

Top 10 Ranking Factors in 2007:

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag (4.9)
2. Global Link Popularity of Site (4.5)
3. Anchor Text of Inbound Link (4.4)
4. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure (4.1)
5. Age of Site (4)
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site (3.9)
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community (3.9)
8. Keyword Use in Body Text (3.9)
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site (3.7)
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page (3.6)

The list of contributors reads like a list of Who’s Who in the SEO world.

Here are some questions to think about.

• Just what are the developing trends for search engine optimization considerations?
• What do these shifts in priorities mean to you, the site owner or SEO service?
• How will this report effect your SEO strategy?

late,
Gary

SEOmoz – Ranking Factors Version 2 Released is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician