Best-Kept Secrets for Search Marketing Success Stephan Spencer

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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Technical Optimization © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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. – http: //searchengineland. com/070705 -123736. php § Art: – Knocking out your competitor’s indented second listing © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

This isn’t really #3 © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts.

Nope, not yet © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Gone! It’s true position was #9 © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. 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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Indexation § Science: – Essential tools: Yahoo Site Explorer, Netconcepts URL Checker, Netconcepts Product Page Checker (www. netconcepts. com/productcheck) – 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 Page. Rank/authority © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

© 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Results estimate decreased by 2/3 rds © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts.

Flowing Page. Rank § Science: – – Using rel=nofollow on low-value internal links SEOChat Page. Rank Search tool SEOChat Page. Rank Lookup tool SEO for Firefox tool § Art: – Knowing which of your pages to nofollow – Iterative testing © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

301 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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Cloaking § Science: – Viewed cloaked content with Google Translate and translate it from English to English • http: //translate. google. com/translate? hl=en&sl=en&u=URLGOE SHERE&sa=X&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 • http: //searchengineland. com/070301 -065358. php © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Supplemental Index § Science: – Figuring out which pages are and are not in “Supplemental hell” • http: //www. mapelli. info/tools/supplemental-index-ratiocalculator/ • site: www. xyz. com -allinurl: www. xyz. com – Popping pages out of supplemental with robots. txt disallow, rel=nofollow, internal linking, link building © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Duplicate Content § Science: – Scanning for duplicate content – Blocking duplicate content without blackholing the Page. Rank (i. e. disallowing with rel=nofollow) – If using tracking parameters in URLs, use 301 redirects or Java. Script – http: //www. practicalecommerce. com/articles/444/SEO-The. Duplicate-Content-Penalty/ § Art: – Augment and/or revise duplicate content with APIs, unique titles/metadata, © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

CSS § Science: – – Reordering content above navigation Image replacement technique Progressive enhancement for Flash & AJAX http: //www. practicalecommerce. com/articles/251/S EO-Harness-the-Power-of-CSS/ § Art: – Design worthy of CSS Zen Garden © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Content Optimization © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Keyword Research § Science: – Mastering tools such as Keyword. Discovery, Google Suggest, Spyfu, Word. Tracker, 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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

“Thin Slicing” § Science: – Mass edit admin – Mechanical Turk § Art: –

Link Building © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

High-Value Link Targets § Science: – Build spiders to find sites with super high Page. Rank, 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, SEOLinks 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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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 Af. Ds – Earning Barnstar awards & adminship status © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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 © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

You. Tube § Science: – – Proper formatting Tagging Title and description Channels § Art: – Entertainment value – Finding that viral hook © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

My. Space § 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 My. Space avatar, comment graphic, layout etc. – Having a profile layout that differentiates you without killing usability © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Blogs § Science: – Knowing which blogs pass Page. Rank to commenters (e. g. Mark Cuban’s) – Decoupling your blog’s title tags from the post titles (e. g. “SEO Title Tag” Word. Press 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 www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

More SEO Tools § For link analysis and Page. Rank – – – Touch. Graph Live Page. Rank Webmaster. Eyes Google Webmaster Central Thumbshots Ranking tool SEOpen © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

More SEO Tools § Technical optimization – – – – – User Agent Switcher Switch. Proxy Scrutinizer Copyscape Poodle Predictor Xenu Link Sleuth Robot Replay Crazy. Egg What’s That Site Running Wayback Machine © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

More SEO Tools § Other reporting – – Alexa Digital. Point Keyword Rankings Urltrends Hitwise ($$) § List and links at – www. practicalecommerce. com/articles/368/SEO-Toolkit/ – www. practicalecommerce. com/articles/176/SEO: -Tools-for. Link-Building/ © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com

Q&A! § For an ebook on Google power searching, SEO checklists & worksheets, and audio recording, executive summary & transcript of an SEO thought leaders teleconference, email seo@netconcepts. com or give me your business card § Any questions come to you later, contact me: stephan@netconcepts. com © 2008 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www. netconcepts. com sspencer@netconcepts. com