Assess. Diagnose. Fix: How to Become a Leading SEO Mechanic Unless we're referring to the horse whisperers or Mr. Ed, we often defer to the authoritative information of a trusted source as "from the horse's mouth", so our initial diagnosis tools should naturally be from the most trusted of sources, Google & Bing. Their Webmaster Tools offerings are similar in their differences, and both offer valuable insights into page / site / content optimization, without falling victim to "hoof in mouth" syndrome.

1. Assess.
Diagnose.
Fix.
How
to
Become
a
Leading
SEO
Mechanic
Grant
Simmons
The
Search
Agency
Director,
SEO
&
Social
Product

2. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
The
Search
Agency
-­‐
Agent
“Algo”
Grant
Simmons
@simmonet
SEO
Guy,
Father,
Sailor
But
not
necessarily
in
that
order
when
there’s
an
America’s
Cup
going
on…

3. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
“
Give
me
a
lever
long
enough
and
a
fulcrum
on
which
to
place
it,
and
I
shall
move
the
(SEO)
world.
”
Archimedes

4. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Tools
• The
right
SEO
tools
– Save
Kme,
effort,
$$
• Give
insights
that
are:
– Interpretable
– AcKonable
– Trackable
– Not
BS
• Affordable
is
nice
@simmonet

5. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
From
the
Horse’s
Mouth
• Bing
Webmaster
Tools
• Overview
– SEO
Analyzer
– Link
Explorer
– Inbound
Links
– Index
Explorer

6. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
From
the
Horses
Mouth
Content
is
the
reason
Keyword
research
is
the
beacon
Quality
is
your
watch
word
Authority
is
your
goal
Niche
is
your
star9ng
point
User
Experience
is
your
religion
…and
use
the
free
tools
provided.
Duane
Forrester,
Sr.
Product
Manager
–
Bing
Webmaster
Tools

7. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Bing
Webmaster
Tools
hVp://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster
• Sign
up
• Login
• And
let’s
go!

8. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
BWT
“My
Sites”
• What’s
happening?
• SHTF?
• What
should
I
look
at
first?

9. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Dashboard

10. San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Quick
Fact
Bing
doesn’t
use
Google
AnalyOcs

11. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
How
Do
We
Diagnose?

12. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$

13. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
SEO
Analyzer

14. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
SEO
Analyzer
Great
for
one
URL!

15. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
SEO
Reports
BeVer
site
overview!

16. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
SEO
Reports
• Runs
automaKcally
every
other
week
• Scans
URLs
for
all
sites
you
have
verified
• “SEO
SuggesKons”
>
detail
• Detail
>
Analyzer

17. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Link
Explorer
See
Easily
Top
Inbound
Links

18. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Link
Explorer
See
Link
Schemes
/
Reciprocal

19. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Other
Link
Tools
• Link
Explorer
is
good
BUT
– Has
limitaKons

• Inbound
Links
is
beVer!

20. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Inbound
Links
• Explore
link
graph
• Which
pages
have
quality
signals
• Export
(can
be
handy!)

21. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Inbound
Links
Link
Details
• Page-­‐level
• Up
to
20k
• Anchor
text
• Export
(can
be
handy!)
Excel
Filters
/
Pivots
by
Domain
/
Anchor
etc.

22. San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Quick
Fact
Duane
Forrester
was
stumped!
9/10/13

23. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Crawl
InformaOon
• High
level
overview
• SHTF?
• Last
bot
crawl
date
• Errors
/
insights
• Exportable
(which
can
be
handy!)

24. San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Crawl
InformaOon
(Messages)

25. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Index
Explorer
• Visual
representaKon
of
crawled
&
indexed
pages
and
directory
structure
• Details
about
contents
of
domains
/directories
• Details
about
traffic
and
search
results

26. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Index
Explorer
• Great
Filters
/
Drill
Down

27. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Index
Explorer
-­‐
Subdomain
Visibility
• BWT
gives
visibility
into
subdomains
• We
were
able
to
spot
abandoned
subdomains
• A
few
had
been
hijacked
(another
issue
is
that
they
could
be
hijacked!)

28. San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
There’s
Lots
More!
Keyword
research
tool
GEO
targeOng
Site
acOvity
Crawl
control
Parameter
handling
Disavow
tool
Deep
links
(sitelinks)
Etc.
etc.
etc.

29. San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Fact
Bing
Webmaster
Tools
Offers
great
info
from
the
horse’s
mouth

30. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Don’t
look
gib
horse
in
the
….
Free
powerful
tools?

31. Assess.
Diagnose.
Fix.
How
to
Become
a
Leading
SEO
Mechanic
Grant
Simmons
The
Search
Agency
Director,
SEO
&
Social
Product

32. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Pros
• BWT
has
comparable
features
to
GWT
• BWT’s
interface
and
navigaKon
is
superior
• BWT
has
addiKonal
capabiliKes
– WYSIWYG
reporKng
for
HTML
errors
– Organic
keyword
research
– IntegraKon
of
paid
search
elements
– Control
crawl
seings
– VisualizaKon
of
indexed
pages
– Link
Explorer
tool
– Add
/
Block
URLs
on-­‐the-­‐fly

33. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Cons
• BING
=
“Bing
Is
Not
Google”
– Market
share
for
w/e
September
7,
2013
• Google
=
68.5%
• Bing
+
Yahoo
=
18.3%
– EsKmated
number
of
indexed
pages
• Google
2.5
to
10
x
as
big
as
Bing
+
Yahoo
• Inferior
Internal
Links
capabiliKes
• Add
/
Block
URLs
only
applies
to
Bing’s
index

34. San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Quick
SERP
Analysis
/
CTR
Diagnosis

35. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Bing
List
of
Important
SEO
Elements
• Title
tags
• Meta
DescripKons
• Clean
URLs
• Images
and
Alt
descripKons
(also
called
alt
tags)
• H1
tags
• Rel=Canonical
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Social
sharing
opKons
• Unique
content
• Depth
of
content
• Matching
content
type
to
visitor
expectaKons
(text,
images,
video,
etc.)
• Usability
Page
load
Kmes
(to
a
certain
point
–
faster
is
great,
but
not
at
the
expense
of
usability
and
usefulness)
• Crawlability
(AKA
discoverability,
so
can
we
actually
get
to
all
your
content)
• News
–
if
you
are
actually
a
news
site,
submit
for
inclusion
July
26
2013

36. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Bing
List
of
Problem
SEO
Elements
• Meta
Keywords
(fill
them
in
if
you
like,
keep
it
short
and
relevant,
but
not
a
big
ranking
factor)
• Duplicate
URLs
• Overly
long
URLs
(no
set
number,
but
you’ve
all
seen
these)
• Cloaking
(comes
down
to
your
intent,
but
risky
business
for
sure)
• Link
buying
• Selling
links
• Link
and
like
farms
• Three
way
links
• Content
duplicaKon
content
• Auto
following
in
social
media
July
26
2013

37. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$
Reports
&
Data
• Site
AcKvity
– View
traffic,
crawl
error,
and
index
metrics
– Data
only
goes
back
to
the
first
day
of
registry
with
BWT

38. @simmonet
San$Francisco|$September$10–13,$2013$|$#SESSF$|$@SESConf$$