seo secrets of wise bread

SEO Secrets ofWise Bread

Greg GoWise Bread

FINCON11

Chicago, October 1-2, 2011

2SEO Secrets of Wise BreadFINCON11, Chicago

Agenda

I. Introduction

II. SEO Overview & Best Practices

III. Wise Bread’s SEO Mentality

IV. Day-to-Day Tactics

V. Tools We Actually Use

VI. Q&A

Slides, links, notes at www.wisebread.com/fincon11

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Wise Bread’s SEO Credentials

• 570,000 monthly Google referrals.

Search traffic = 54% of all Wise Bread traffic

• Rank in top 20 for 17,000 keywords.

credit card guide, frugal living, change your life, best personal finance blogs, best ways to save money, credit karma

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About Greg

• Wise Bread co-founder and tech lead.

• About.com Guide to Online Business (’07-’08).

The Secret

Get relevant links

to high quality content

from trusted authorities.

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Keyword Markets

personal finance

saving moneyrecipes

homemadeorange chicken

credit cards

20 something finance

savings accountsfor college students

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Keywords to Target

1. Plenty of traffic.

2. Easy to beat competition.

3. High value readers.

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Can I Beat Top 10 Results?

192m

443m

682m

Search Results

(Google)

$8.39+4611,000credit card college

first card

$6.8760301,000credit card college

$4.728116,600,000credit card

Value / CPC

(AdWords)

Ranking Difficulty

(SEOmoz)

Search Volume

(Google)Keyword

SEOmoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool:

1. Who are the top 10 results?

2. Who links to them?

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Takeaway #1: Be a Niche Authority

personal finance

saving moneyrecipes

credit cards

20 something finance

savings accountsfor college students

You?

homemadeorange chicken

10SEO Secrets of Wise BreadFINCON11, Chicago

What’s a High-Quality Site?

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?

• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine,encyclopedia or book?

All 23 questions:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

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After Google’s “Panda” Update

300k300k300k300k350k350k350k350k400k400k400k400k450k450k450k450k500k500k500k500k550k550k550k550k600k600k600k600k

FebFebFebFeb MarMarMarMar AprAprAprApr MayMayMayMay JunJunJunJun JulJulJulJul AugAugAugAugGoogle Search Referrals

994kDec – Feb

+31%1,310kMar – May

+24%

Q/Q

Change

1,629kJun – Aug

GoogleReferralsQuarter

Panda update 2/24/11

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Takeaway #2: Think Long Term

Consistent quality > Perfect tactics

Wise Bread lifetime search traffic

Wise Bread’s SEO PlaybookStrategy, Tactics, Tools

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Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook

Big Picture Strategy

1. Always be link building.

2. Engage the sphere.

3. Slow and steady.

Day-to-Day Tactics

1. Magazine quality articles.

2. Article checklist.

3. Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.

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Wise Bread’s Strategy

1. Always be link building.

• From high quality sites that are bigger, more influential, nicheauthorities, etc.

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Some Regular PF Roundups

• PT MoneyWeekend Link Roundup

• Wise BreadBest Money Tips

• Get Rich SlowlySpare Change

• Money CrashersPersonal Finance Roundup

• MoolanomyPersonal Finance Roundup

• The Simple DollarWeekly Roundup

• Budgets Are SexyWeekly Roundup

• Financial HighwayWeekly Review

• Sweating the Big StuffBest of the Rest

• Green Panda Tree HouseWhat’s Cool Around the Web

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Wise Bread’s Strategy

1. Always be link building.

2. Engage the sphere.

• Find and engage niche authorities (thought leaders, subject matter experts, influential personalities, passionate rising stars, etc).

• Make sure everyone knows us.

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Engage Anywhere and Everywhere

Weekly twitter chat at #wbchat

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Takeaway #3: Social Media = SEO

LifeRemix by@GlenStansberry

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Wise Bread’s Strategy

1. Always be link building.

2. Engage the sphere.

3. Slow and steady.

• Be cautious. Move slowly. Beware of fads.

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Don’t Panic!

Look at those peaks and valleys.

Wise Bread lifetime search traffic

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Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook

Big Picture Strategy

1. Always be link building.

2. Engage the sphere.

3. Slow and steady.

Day-to-Day Tactics

1. Magazine quality articles.

2. Article checklist.

3. Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.

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Wise Bread’s Tactics

1. Magazine quality articles.

• “Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?”

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Magazine Quality Content

• 800-1,000 words• Long enough to be authoritative.

• Short enough to be built upon with related articles.

• Pretty picture.• In-depth Flickr search is worth the time.

• Editing is more important than writing.• Formatting matters to bots: <h1> <h2> <strong> <em> <a>

• Typos matter to human readers.

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Wise Bread’s Tactics

1. Magazine quality articles.

2. Article checklist.

• Help readers and search engines understand.

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Article Checklist

Places for Keywords

� Article Title (<h1> tag)

� Page Title (<title> tag)

� Meta Description

� URL

� H-headings, bold, italics

� <img> “alt” and “title” properties

� <a> “title” property

Editorial Considerations

� Authority

� Readability

� Categories & Tags

� Links out – related articles.

� Links in – update related old posts.

Tip! Mix up keywords. Use related phrases.

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Wise Bread’s Tactics

1. Magazine quality articles.

2. Article checklist.

3. Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.

• Questions we ask. Tools we use.

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Tools We Actually Use

• Research

• SEOmoz

• Open Site Explorer

• KW Difficulty Tool

• SEMRush

• Google

• Search Results

• AdWords

• Wise 1000

• (fka Wise Bread’s Top PF Blogs)

• Monitoring

• Google Analytics

• Mint

• Sitemeter

• CrazyEgg

• Facebook Insights

• Klout

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SEMRush – Blog’s Best Rankings

http://www.semrush.com/info/fiscalgeek.com

This blog is an authority on… ?

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CrazyEgg – Heatmaps!

Winning SEO Strategy

Get relevant links

to high quality content

from trusted authorities.

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Action ItemWork the list. Get a link from every relevant, high-quality blog.

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Questions?

• What SEO mistakes have you made?

• How much time do you spend on SEO? (As a percentage of your effort.)

• Do link exchanges work?

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The End – Thanks!

Slides, links, notes• wisebread.com/fincon11

Get the Entire Playbook

• Advanced Blog Monetization – Lynn Truong

• 1 Million Page Views on a Small Budget –Will Chen