creative thinking + linking in seo
TRANSCRIPT
Creative Thinking & Effective Linking
Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz CEO, June 2011
This deck is available online at http://bit.ly/omsmozlinking
Remember Back in 2004…
Today, It Looks More Like…
SEO Used to Be Just a Few Key Items…
The Basics of SEO: Accessibility, Content Quality, KW Usage and Link Signals
Useful, Relevant
Page
Proper Keyword Usage
Accessible to Crawlers
Solid Internal Link Structure
High Quality, Anchor-Rich, External Links
But Today, It’s All That, Plus…
When everyone’s getting the basics right, you need to go above and beyond to compete.
Useful, Relevant
Page
Proper Keyword Usage
Accessible to Crawlers
Solid Internal Link Structure
High Quality, Anchor-Rich, External Links
Rich Snippets
Vertical Results
Suggest/Instant
Brand Metrics
Usage Data
SnippetOptimization
Google +1
Quality Raters
Topic Modeling
10 “New” Strategies Every SEO Should Be Considering in 2011
#1: Expanding Our Social Circles
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlResults from Google’s “My Social Circle.” To see results like this, just add “&tbs=frim:1” to the end of any Google query.
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlThese annotations undoubtedly increase CTR, particularly if the source is trusted.
The social connections appear to influence
rank ordering.
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://www.google.com/search?q=mba+program+reviews
Hang on a tic... How did they know I’m connected to Kalena on Facebook?! I
haven’t yet added Facebook to my Google account!
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlRead more here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/social-annotations-in-search-now-your-social-network-rankings and see your socially connected data via http://www.google.com/s2/search/social?hl=en#socialcontent
Google crawls deeply to get social data and connections
once you add a profile.
#2: Improving Our Site’s Social “Share-Ability”
Via one of the web’s most brilliant data porn blogs: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/
Every post on http://mashable.com has 23 unique links to share across 7 channels
Overwhelmed by sharing!!
Google’s Now Showing +1 to Logged Out Users, Too: http://searchengineland.com/confirmed-google-showing-1-counts-to-logged-out-users-82800
#3: Optimizing Our Own Sharing Activities
By using http://bit.ly for link sharing, I can see stats on the things that I share that earn clicks/retweets/facebook shares, etc. From that tracking, I can learn + optimize.
Check out http://www.seomoz.org/blog/calculating-and-improving-your-twitter-clickthroughrate for more on analyzing/improving your social sharing
I use http://trunk.ly to keep track of everything I share across networks and make it searchable for future retrieval.
#4: Influencing the Influencers
Google Profile search also rocks: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/dont-ask-sites-for-links-find-people-and-connect. Just use &tbs=prfl:e to the end of any Google query to see them.
#5: Video Content
Video “snippets” and video results are a powerful way to get high CTR and great branding. More - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/video-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday-11080
Video XML Sitemaps protocol enables you to host any video on your site, send it to Google, and get included in their video results + snippets. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472
At Moz, we use and like http://www.wistia.com for video hosting; particularly the stats, ability to embed and earn the link back to our site rather than someone else’s!
We control the link for the embed video feature, including
the target and anchor text!
#6: User Experience Optimization
Panda features metrics and a machine-learning model that biases toward “better” UX sites: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/
#7: Site Speed
Site speed alone may only be a small factor, but if you’re not loading fast enough, you’re likely losing out on everything else, too… http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-speed-are-you-fast-does-it-matter
#8: Beauty of Design + Layout
If your site is as pretty as http://www.cakesweetcake.co.uk/, your credibility, perceived trust, brand value and other post-Panda SEO metrics are going to be much easier to get right.
Finding a designer whose work you love isn’t terribly hard, and it will likely be some of the best money you spend. http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/16-best-web-design-galleries-for-inspiration/ has a good list of sites to check out.
Drawar.com/gallery is one of my favorites for finding
awesome designs
#9: Community Participation
Moleskine does an awesome job of getting their designer/re-seller community contributing on their site: http://artistmarketplace.moleskine.com/en
You Must Become a Hub for GreatContent in Your Niche
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlSometimes, a single piece of content or just a few, can yield these results but, more often, it takes dozens to hundreds of attempts to become a resource hub.
Site that offers:• Unique Research• Informed Opinions• News/Trend Analysis• Multimedia Content• Authentic Expert Contributors• Quality Discussion/Interaction
Referenced by industry
blogs
Mentioned in news
publications
Cited at conferences + events
Liked/Shared on Facebook
Links are Tweeted
Answers on Q+A sites reference its resources
Forum discussions link to its pages
People email links to each
other
#10: We Need to Kill the“Good, Unique Content” Meme
“Good, unique content” isn’t good enough. That’s what everyone’s making. If you’re not raising the bar, just buy traffic. Inbound marketing + SEO probably aren’t for you.
To produce truly awesome, share-worthy stuff, you’re going to need to invest serious effort. Using content factories and automated solutions is unlikely to work for much longer.
STOPGetting Links
STARTEarning Links
Honestly, how long can these tactics keep working? And, more importantly, do they really add value to your business or just expose you to risk when the engines get smarter?
Take Time Invested in These:Directory Link Building
Sitewide, Footer Links
Low Cost/Quality, Outsourced Content
Keyword Stuffed Titles + Pages
Anchor-Text Rich Internal Links
Navigation for Engines, Not Humans
Generic Design and Layout
Anonymous Contact Forms
Ad Blocks Dominating the Page
Reciprocal Link Pages Paid Links w/ Manipulative Anchor Text
Keyword-Variant Abuse
Do This Stuff Instead; It Really Works
Blogs + Blogging
Comment Marketing
News/Media/PRSEO
Social Networks
Word of Mouth
Q+A Sites
Forums
Online Video
Podcasting
Webinars
Research/White Papers
Infographics
Social Bookmarking
INBOUND MARKETING!(Find Your Audience Organically on the Web)
Direct/Referring Links
Type-In Traffic
Document Sharing
Q+A
Rand Fishkin; CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz
• Twitter: @randfish
• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog
• Email: [email protected]
This deck is online at http://bit.ly/omsmozlinking