This presentation is from Affiliate Summit East 2014 (August 10-12, 2014 New York City). Session Description: SEO is dead? Not even close. It’s evolved. This session will take a look at what’s changed, what’s stayed the same & how merchants & affiliates alike can not only survive those changes, but thrive.

1. IT’S DEAD
ASE 2014
RAE HOFFMAN
(LOL)

2. RAE HOFFMAN
@Sugarrae
http://sugarrae.com
http://pushfire.com

3. PANDA
Launch - 2/23/11
Rolling updates since 3/2013

4. Page Layout Update
1/19/12
Google Analytics > Behavior > In-page analytics > Browser size

5. PENGUIN
Launch – 4/24/12
#NOMERCY
Last updated – 10/04/2013

6. EMD UPDATE
9/27/2012

7. PAYDAY
LOAN
UPDATE
6/11/13

8. HUMMINGBIRD
8/20/13

9. & THE LIST GOES ON

10. TFW

11. PANDA – Mountain View, CA
LIKES:
“Good content”, encountering
few technical issues, authority, low
ad counts and he likes thick posts and
he cannot lie.
DISLIKES:
 Thin content (350 word articles targeting 1000
long tail keywords)
 Duplicate content (like unedited, duplicated
data feeds)
 Low quality “MFA” style content
 Technical SEO issues that create false positives
 Excessive ads
 User complaints
BEST TRAIT:
Cleaning up the web
WORST TRAIT:
Quick to judge

12. MERCHANTS
 Don’t give affiliates the same datafeed you use on your site
 Clear up technical SEO issues
 Don’t create 48 pages where 1 will do
 A part of your website can drag down the whole
 Add UGC components and moderate them - heavily
 YOUR BLOG IS NOT A BROCHURE
 The Facebook ad spend test
 Position your brand as much as possible

13. AFFILIATES
 Don’t use a merchant datafeed without editing / adding to it
 Clear up technical SEO issues
 https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/
 Redirect affiliate links internally
 Add UGC components and moderate them – heavily
 I <3 http://myreviewplugin.com for WP based sites
 The Facebook ad spend test
 Position your brand as much as possible
 Never sell out user trust

14. PENGUIN – Mountain View,
CA
LIKES:
Big brands, bigger brands and global brands
DISLIKES:
 Smaller brands
 Guest posting
 Anchor text links
 Press release links
 Low quality links
 Technical SEO issues that create false positives
 “SEO” links
 Natural links that look like “SEO” links
 Most links
 Links you even thought about getting
BEST TRAIT:
None
WORST TRAIT:
Vindictive as hell

15. SAY CONTENT MARKETING
ONE MORE TIME

16. LINK BUILDING
 Do: Target your demo, not your product
 Do: Remember that your blog = table legs
 Do: Find the Linkerati through social media
 Do: Create useful content
 Do: Create viral campaigns
 Do: Guest post for traffic
 Do: Build traffic outside of Google

17. LINK BUILDING
 Avoid: Heavy anchor concentrations
 Avoid: Linking in press releases
 Avoid: Sloppy & obvious link buying
 Avoid: Low quality link building
 Avoid: Off topic inbound links
 Avoid: Giveaway and review campaigns unless…
 Avoid: Links you’re confident won’t bring you traffic

18. YOUR
SITE
Interviewing
people
Being
interviewed
Social non
G+
Google+
Reference
links
External
guest posting
Internal
guest posting
Alternative
medium
content JV
opportunities
Broken link
building
Link
reclamation
Networking
Offline
efforts
Citation
monitoring
LINK BUILDING IS HARD WORK

19. SOLVE
PROBLEMS

20. Content is King
(& Why that’s a bull$hit mantra)

21. A singer is
only a
PERFORMER
…when she has an audience

22. GOOGLE DOESN’T WANT
TO MAKE WEBSITES
POPULAR
THEY WANT TO RANK
POPULAR
WEBSITES

23. “If you’re not
building an email
list? You’re an idiot.”
Derek Halpern
@derekhalpern
http://socialtriggers.com

24. THANK YOU
Awesome advice for bloggers
http://sugarrae.com
Consulting for merchants &
businesses
http://pushfire.com
Kicks in the ass
http://facebook.com/therealsugarrae
Ranting & cursing & football
https://twitter.com/sugarrae