Rant: Okay, generally the content was pretty solid. Organization needs to be tighten up with the workbook matching the slides and presentation order. What happened to the session on SEO reporting? That was a big miss. Definitely not SEO 101 which is why the 200+ of us showed up. But guys , you’ve got to slow down your delivery. There was 8 sessions in 6 hours and that’s too much. Cut it down to 6 and allow more interactivity with the audience. Also, WTF? this is Seattle, why no afternoon coffee? Day 1 grade: 78/100, C+
Now for a bulleted list of some of the better comments, tips and discussions. This is according to what the published schedule was but not the actual order of events.
Session 1: SEO is Nothing Without Content
Give contributors of user generated content and ego boost which helps build community. Recognize them and give them ownership of their profiles.
At start up of user generated content initiatives, seed with high quality content or members.
Include a call to action to encourage sharing of content. Reward links with trackbacks.
Pride is a great motivator. Praise someone, let them know and they’ll likely link to the content.
Google crawls sites according to page rank. High PR’s get crawled more frequently, new/low sites have trouble.
Session 2: Structurally Sound SEO
In navigation, target relevant keywords in links and category names. Use sub-categories (appropriately titled) rather than excessive pages. Include useful and relevant content on category level pages.
Don’t let users define navigational tags. Provide a selection of keyword rich options.
Use 301 redirects to move links to pages with fewer links and strong content.
Don’t use robot.txt files to block pages. Instead use the META noindex command to prevent pages from being displayed.
Measure the delta between search engine indexing and crawling of your site.
Session 3: First You Get Keywords, Then You Get The Money
Onsite search data is a great source of keywords.
IceRocket.com for social media use of keywords.
ContentRanch.com/google-geo-search-tool – shows SERPs in different geographic areas.
Consider using good converting PPC ad headlines in META data. Test it.
Session 4: Was supposed to be SEO reporting which would have been great! Since we’ve gone away from rankings reports, use of reports to communicate progress and success is vital.
Session 5: Just a list of tools. Nothing much noteworthy.
Session 6: Sustain Verticality for 3 Rounds – What does this mean? No notes from this session.
Session 7: Getting the Most Out of Linkscape (aka SEOMoz’s commercial) – you’ve got to be familiar with SEOMoz’s tools for this to mean much.
Linkscape counts are lower because they claim to focus on only links from highest quality pages.
Track changes in your volume of indexed pages. The size of the index changes but compare how competitors are doing as a percentage of their indexed pages.
New link visibility tool allows you to see where competitors are outperforming you. Also includes immediate actions to take.
New link intersection tool from SEOmoz. Put in your site + 5 competitors and see how each competes.
You should strive for balance between mozRank and mozTrust figures.
Session 8?: Strategies for Local Search on Google – By this time everyone was confused about the order of presentations and where to find the content in the workbook.
Up to 40% of querries have local intent. A more conservative estimate is 25%. Among the local intent is 5% include city and/or state. An additional 2% include neighborhood terms and 0.5% include a zip code.
Engines are using explicit questions (i.e. “US City – zip” in search box), search history, account information, IP targeting and browser information to provide localized results.
IP targeting automatically is being applied to generic keyword searches.
Google’s 10-packs come from the maps.google.com algorithm. This is entirely different than the google search algorithm and focused on location.
Local search engine optimization is driven by location, not by websites. Be consistent in your use of location variables across all your firm’s citations online including profiles (i.e. employee profiles on social networking sites).
Claim your local business listings in engines and secondary local listings data suppliers. These other sources include InfoUSA, Localeze, Universal Business Listing, Yahoo Local, Best of the Web, OpenList, Cite Voter, Insider Pages and Superpages.
Mine local online resources (i.e. associations, directories, chamber of commerce) and get links and citations on these properties.
For organizations with multiple locations, give each their own location as long as there is a physical presence.
When the opportunity is available, use strong calls to action in your local listings. See what is working with PPC and include those headlines and offers.
Get reviews for your local listings. Quality of rating affects local listing click through rates.
Session X?: Getting Links
I’m sorry but I couldn’t understand most of this presentation. Not the content but the thick English accent and hyper speed delivery. Please S-L-O-W down and take a breath. Below is what I managed to make out. It’s unfortunate since linking is so vital.
Know your strengths and why your content is worthy of being linked to. Develop your unique selling proposition and build on this. Use to separate your site from the 100’s of others you’re competing against for links.
Create widgets to get links.
Develop content that leverages your community. Let them know about it. People are vain and if they are profiled they’ll likely link to it.
Evaluate your competitors and re-engineer their successes. Map out what they’re doing correctly. Target gaps between their success and your short falls.
(Presenter plugs SEOMoz tool) Use Linkscape and sort by domain trust rank. Identify gaps in missing links and target those.
Build a process for acquiring links. Understand why your building each link and the value of them. Treat as a business development activity. Embed linking into your business. Write into contracts with vendors and partners. Talk to your linking partners. Treat them as partners.
Directory networks can be useful. Check that they pass value. See their PR and indexing of inner pages. Are the links clean?
Run an AdWords content network campaign to see where your ads appear. Take down campaign and target these sites for linking.
Last sessions of the day
Dharmseh Shah, Founder of Hubspot talked about his start up experience. As a founder and participant in several start ups, this was an entertaining talk but off topic for the seminar. I should would have like to had time for that SEO Reporting session.
Pannel Q&A
Good stuff but specific to the individuals asking the questions.
You must log in to post a comment.