The Maine SEO Blog

Moderator: Detlev Johnson, CEO, SearchReturn

Speaker: Leslie Rohde, Founder, Windrose Software

• Why internal linking? you control your own pages, you control your own links, focuses the effects of external linking
• “Good ranking starts at home”
• Ranking is simple (On-page factors, link reputation, PageRank)
• Link Reputation (links speak louder than pages – Google bombing, aka “miserable failure”; click here, privacy policy, home, etc.)
• Fragmented reputation (“partial truth” – cooking link should be cooking appliances)
• Choose focus and force ranking/PR to “follow the money” (home page push, mid tier push, long tail push)

Speaker: Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting Corporation

• Syntax (nofollow – attribute/meta-tag, noindex, nofollow and noindex)
• Robots.txt (/test/, /cgi-bin/)
• noindex CAN pass PR
• nofollow meta-tag – will index but won’t pass link juice to ALL links on page
• nofollow attribute – won’t pass link juice to a specific link
• robots.txt – can’t crawl page, see links, or pass link juice
• For duplicate content: noindex pages, once removed: nofollow links to pages, DON’T use robots.txt page: lose ability to pass link juice)
• Content Syndication – syndicate tens of thousands of pages to a PR 8 site, noindex syndicated pages, prevents duplicate content problem, still passes link juice
• Ecommerce site – hard to get links for, solution: build a rich content tree (such as a BLOG), get links to that site, incorporate in the content tree: links to key parts of the site, nofollow all other links
• Basic Sculpting, remove: About us, Advertise with us, Contact us, Press center, List your biz on citysearch, Job opportunities, Partner sites (some)
• Duplicate content w/ http and https

Speaker: Adam Audette, President, AudetteMedia, Inc

• Text links are good – Beware of image links, have text links options, image replacement is an alternative
• Contextual links rule – images have no semantic meaning, images have emotion and context, text has semantic meaning
• Anchor text? – not golden key, be aware of context of pages, watch surrounding pages, influence increases w/ scale, on large sites: anchor text is influential
• Speak to Users – anchor text = calls to action, think about your site’s visitors
• Vary anchor text, keep it natural
• Standardize linking to all pages
• Link/page relations – Link text should match targets – again, telling the truth, keywords should surround the link and be in the link text
• Are your pages impt.? – Check internal link counts; pages w/out many internal links, give signal to bots and people = page isn’t important
• Link Thresholds – No more than 100-150 links/page BUT depends on case – Zappos has over 1500 on their brand page
• Related link structure – use related linking to flatten link structure, encourages crawling, breadcrumbs are good
• Tag pages – Have users tag pages/manually build; create popular pages, categorize, product, RSS Feeds

Speaker: Anton Konikoff, Founder/CEO, Acronym Media

• Keywords in navigation need to be ACCURATE
• Difficult to isolate net impact on rankings
• Potential success metrics: indexing levels, crawl frequency, crawl patterns, click-through rate on links
• BEFORE CHANGING links, link audit: click distribution, page abandon rates, user click paths, path to conversion
• Anchor text still has to be understood by users in order to have an optimal experience, SO balance SEO and user experience
• Business case for internal link changes: consult w/ user experience teams, sift through historical data, collect intel on competitors’ tactics, test suggestions

Q & A

• To pass juice, both Page A and Page B must be indexed
• Other search engines (not Google) follow nofollow tags
• How often is page indexed? – may show importance
• Nofollow affiliates – increase internal PR
• “Internal link currency” – spend wisely within site

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.

Moderator: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, Vice President, Marketing, Exact Target

Speaker: Nikki Fielding

• Have a consistent, core brand message
• Each channel should be appropriate for what it is: video vs. images vs. content vs. PPC
• Push LinkedIn more

Speaker: Simon Heseltine, Director of Search, Serengeti Communications

• What are people saying about your brand? (tweetbeep – alerts when people talk about your company, Google Alerts, Technoarti/RSS Feeds, Digg, Wikipedia – history page, YouTube, Flickr)
• What did people USED to say about your brand?

Speaker: Michael Jensen, Co-founder, SoloSEO

• Local reputation: Yelp; local: maps, SERP, apps, etc.)
• Get customers to review you online! (motivation: coupon, discount, free gift, etc.)
• Have customers leave a review right at your location – may result in link/recommendation
• Respond to critical reviews
• Pluribo: reviewing eBay products

Other Speaker: Jordan Glogau, Partner, Internet Reputation Management

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.

Moderator: Detlev Johnson, CEO, SearchReturn

Speaker: Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster

• PPC and SEO are complementary
• Focus on 2-3 word terms; use one word keyword only very rarely if ever
• Watch conversion rates/web logs
• Hone in on important high-traffic terms
• Negative match – excluding keywords
• Reduce ad impressions on non-productive searches

Speaker: Karon Thackston, President, Marketing Words

• How to create a PPC ad: use keywords in headlines whenever possible, know what your customers are looking for, write a long paragraph and narrow it down, include negative/filtering language when applicable, test, tweak, track…

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.

Moderator: Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speaker: Mike Blummental, Partner, Blumenthals

• Huge growth for Google Maps – catching up to MapQuest
• Google maps is seen over a wide variety of devices (SMS, Smartphones, etc.)
• Check for your site in Google Local, Yahoo Local, niche local sites
• The “new” PageRank: location prominent score: explicit anchor text, score of website, number of links referring to the business, highest rank of linking site, NOT PR score)

Speaker: Tony Wright, CEO/Founder, Wright IMC

• Consumer reviews/local business links: Yelp, Angie’s List, Zillow, ServiceMagic, CitySearch
• Local reviews can make/break business
• Set up alerts: Google, Twitter

Speaker: Craig Greenfield, Director, Local Search, Performics

• Businesses with multiple locations: each location should have its own page, with main URL having sitemap for spiders

Speaker: Steve Espinosa, Director of Product Development, eLocal Listing

• Set up local profiles on sites
• A/B Testing is key
• Looking to the future: local listings w/ customized profile
• 5 star reviews are incredibly powerful
• Helpful to have keyword in business name
• Helpful resources: InsiderPages, Open List, Google coupons, Meetup
• When submitting at Google Maps, link videos – adds web reference
• Phone tracking through Google: pretend to make an audio campaign, “call reporting”, track phone numbers!

Q & A

• People are still ignoring modifiers (above regular google ten pack)
• H card format for Local
• Keep check with local reviews
• Google TV – distribution onto TV
• Synergize site with local listings
• Submit to Google
• Other speaker: Eric Stein, Director, Local Markets, Google

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.

So begins my long list of hybrid blogposts – notes from the SMX East Conference in New York City.

Moderator: Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speaker: Cindy Krum, Director of New Media Strategy, Blue Moon Works, Inc.

• Searchers make an average of 9 mobile searches per day.
• iPhones have 5% of the mobile phone market, and 75% of all mobile searches.
• Mobile is important (mass mobile convergence, most personal marketing medium ever, more interactive marketing possibilities, mobile device on you at all times)
• Mobile is different (mobile bots, mobile algorithms, smaller screen, simplified rendering, more sophisticated searchers, have immediate intent)
• .mobi is BAD (splits traffic, links, index size; doesn’t benefit from history, risks duplicate content, confusing for users)
• Direct .mobi to real site; it’s no longer necessary to have a .mobi address
• External stylesheets/CSS creates separate design/copy for real site and mobile site
• Optimizing for phones, options: do nothing, create tiny pages for tiny screens, mobile/traditional hybrid pages

Speaker: Greg Markel, Founder and President, Infuse Creative

• iPhone Apps are important – creating one can increase revenue
• Another reason for “marketing message” in meta-tags: click for iPhone users to call immediately
• Greg’s prediction: in the future, there’s going to be a lack of keyword optimization, and instead location specific and device specific
• TRY APP: Urbanspoon; searching in Google causes the iTunes store to open w/ app → get google to index apps!!
• Set up YouTube channel → automatically makes site iPhone friendly by video default in interim before making site completely iPhone friendly

Speaker: Alex Muller, CEO, Slifter

• Slifter – local shopper app
• Create an iPhone app – what can you create for an entire app where you can actually HELP users??
• Loopt app – social network to find friends in the area → drive sales/advertising to specific location

Q & A

• New Nokia – going to run flash w/ “better” 3G
• Better browsers for mobile devices are coming
• SMS marketing converts better than any other mobile marketing – gather phone numbers w/ email addresses!
• Apps that go across all platforms – forward thinking
• Marketing apps: cannot marketing directly for iTunes URL, so use paid search for app description

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.