Rand Fishkin's presentation at Webit Expo 2010 in Sofia Bulgaria on a variety of SEO topics for the Masterclass series.

1. SEO Masterclass Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmoz Webit, Sofia October 2010

3. Changes from Google Instant

4. Information architecture & navigation structure

5. Overcoming Twitter’s cannibalization of the link graph

6. Making Analytics Actionable

8. Correlation ≠ Causation The more I wear suits, the more I speak on panels. Therefore: wearing suits causes me to speak on panels.

9. Understanding Correlation Significance No Correlation Exact Match Domain Perfect Correlation Most of our data for search rankings falls in this region(which we’d expect given algorithms w/ 200+ ranking factors)

10. Question #1:How to Best “Optimize” a Site for Search Engine Rankings

12. 1st Page Only (usually ~10 results per page)

13. Correlations are w/ Higher Position on Page 1

15. Contains All Query Terms in Domain Name Exact Match Hyphenated Domain Exact Match Domain Highest Stderr = 0.0241804

17. Hyphenated versions are less powerful, though more frequent in Bing (G: 271 vs. B: 890)

20. Putting KWs in URLs is likely a best practice

21. Everyone optimizes titles (G: 11,115 vs. B: 11,143). Differentiating here is hard.

24. The .org TLD extension is surprising – do they earn more links? Less spam? More non-commercial?

27. Long domains may not be ideal, but aren’t awful

29. # of Linking Root Domains to URL # of Links to URL Highest Stderr = 0.00335677

31. Bing may be slightly more naïve in their usage of link data than Google, but better than before

34. Anchor text links from diverse domains, however, appears highly correlated

37. Linking domains are likely a better metric than raw links

40. Rankings of individual pages may be more disparate we typical think re: “domain authority”

42. Are Most Users Seeing/Using Google Instant? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_google_search_box_in_firefox_accounts_for_9.php

44. Distribute into groups by word-length

45. Analyze shifts in demand by keywords that brought visits to the site

47. Via Distilled Consulting (UK) 11 Sites, Various Sizes (3.5K – 75K weekly visits), 75K+ Keywords http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/seo/impact-of-google-instant/

48. Via Conductor Multiple sites, 880K visits, 10Ks of keywords http://blog.conductor.com/2010/09/what%E2%80%99s-been-the-impact-of-google-instant-on-searcher-behavior-so-far-not-much/

50. Google “suggest” has been out for a long time already; users are likely accustomed to this feature

52. Semantically Logical Structure

53. Minimize Click-Depth

54. Maximize Usability of Navigation

55. Tips for Semantically Useful Navigation

56. Initially Design without Keyword Research

57. Add in Keyword Research Based Modifications

58. Validate Architecture/Path with Non-SEOs

59. Tips for Minimal Click-Depth

60. Imitate the Ideal Nav Pyramid

61. Broad Linking at Top Levels

62. Editorial Categorization > User-Defined

63. Editorial Categorization > User-Defined

64. HACK: Multi-Level HTML Sitemap

65. Tips for Usable Navigation

66. Obvious Navigation Elements

67. Naming Conventions that Match Intent

68. User & Usability Testing

69. Avoiding Common “Big Site” Problems

70. Duplicate Content Issues

71. Rel Canonical Tags

72. Google Webmaster Tools

73. SEOmoz Web App

74. Scraping & Re-Publishing

75. Employ Absolute URLs Absolute:<a href=“http://www.seomoz.org/blog”> anchor </a> Relative: <a href=“../blog”> anchor </a>

76. C&D vs. Large, Credible Orgs that Scrape

77. Don’t Go Overboard w/ Bot Blocking

78. Incomplete Indexation

79. Track Referrals, not Site: Commands

80. Check Page “Types” that Don’t Receive Traffic

81. XML Sitemaps

82. Content Syndication

83. RSS Feeds

84. Twitter for Indexation

85. “Search Results” in the SERPs

86. Create Category “Landing” Pages

87. Remove Obvious Traces of “Search” on Landing Pages

88. Thin Content Issues

89. Bolster w/ UGC

90. Employ Scalable Content Production

91. Keep “Thin” Pages Out of the SERPs

92. Faceted Navigation

93. Rel Canonical Can Help

94. Use AJAX to Reload Pages

95. Watch Out for Google Crawling Javascript

96. Offer Facets Only to Logged-In / Cookied Users Logged-In = 345 / Googlebot = 141

97. Overcoming Twitter’s Cannibalization of the Link Graph

98. Way Back in 2007 Interesting content, blog posts & linkbait earned LOTS of links

99. Fast Forward to 2010 Not so many links (in comparison)

100. Fast Forward to 2010 But tons of social sharing (and tweets)

101. Are Pages Linking Out Less? Via Linkscape’s web index

103. How Do We Earn Traditional Web Links (the kind search engines love)?

104. Tactic #1:Embeddable Content

105. Infographics +1,085 links from 356 root domains http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/24/google-facts-and-figures-massive-infographic/

106. Badges http://www.zillow.com/webtools/badges/

107. Value-Add Widgets

108. Tactic #2:Reference Material

109. Research & Data http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014332,00.html

110. Awards + Rankings http://www.moneycrashers.com/top-personal-finance-blogs/

111. Citation-Worthy Explanations http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-algorithm-pretty-charts-math-stuff

112. Tactic #3:Syndicated Content

113. Niches where content is low-supply/high-demand http://perfectmarket.com/vault_index_summer_2010_infographic

114. ID sites that already syndicate from someone else

115. Tactic #4:Stick to Niches w/o Twitter Adoption

116. Find sectors where traditional blogs/forums dominate conversation http://www.eng-tips.com/

117. Many of these “old-school” sites have followed external links (but don’t abuse these) Note the nofollow highlighting

118. Some “Web 2.0” Ones, Too  Impressive domain and page level metrics

119. Tactic #5:Friends, Partners, Customers & Vendors

120. Friends + Family

121. Partners

122. Customers http://www.seomoz.org/blog/headsmacking-tip-1-link-requests-in-order-confirmation-emails

123. Vendors http://burton.kontain.com/evogear/

124. Tactic #6:Twitter May Take Your Tweets, But They’ll Never Take Your Content!

125. Turn Your Tweets Into Content http://twournal.com/home

126. Turn Tweets from industry leaders into content, too (this entices them to share) http://www.seomoz.org/blog/bing-vs-google-prominence-of-ranking-elements

127. Tactic #7:Can’t Beat ‘em? Join ‘em!

128. Twitter is (almost certainly) influencing (at least some) rankings Lots of tweets, virtually no links, but remarkable rankings

129. Twitter can send lots of direct traffic

130. You need to target the right Tweeters http://twitaholic.com/top100/followers/

131. The Ones Who Send Real Traffic http://mashable.com/2009/07/07/twitter-clickthrough-rate/

133. Not the “Grade” Use the “Rank” http://twittergrader.com

135. Tweeting heavily may not necessarily hurt the attention people pay to your tweets

136. Klout score probably isn’t great for predicting the reach of an individual’s tweets/messages

137. TwitterGrader Rank may be useful for predicting the traffic you’d get from a tweeter

139. To Make Analytics Actionable Always Ask: #1 - “Why am I measuring this?” #2 – “What would I do if results were different?”

140. # of Visits Per Search Engine Over Time

141. Action: Measure against search engine market shares & volume to determine whether you’re making positive strides

142. # Pages Getting Search Referrals Over Time Measure this number on a weekly/monthly basis

143. Action: Discover if indexation is an issue worth effort This number sucks. Learn more about why at: www.seomoz.org/blog/indexation-for-seo-real-numbers-in-5-easy-steps

144. # of Keywords Sending Traffic from a Search Engine over Time

145. Action: Determine if content additions are accretive and what drives growth/shrinkage in search traffic Did rankings fall? Or is demand down?

146. Search Referral Analytics

147. # of Visits per Keyword

148. Action: Analyze top traffic drivers from a value perspective, check rankings for potential easy wins & get answers if traffic dips “SEO Tools” is a big win and we could rank higher

149. First-Time vs. Returning Visits per Keyword The keyword “SEO” leans toward first-time visits

150. Action: Determine value of reaching new visitors vs. converting branded users (focus efforts on the more valuable one) This metric speaks to business strategy about converting existing fans vs. reaching new customer segments

151. Distribution of Keyword Referrals

152. Action: Discover strengths vs. opportunities (60-70% of traffic is typically in the long tail and it converts better)

153. Keyword Rankings www.seomoz.org/rank-tracker

154. Action: Know if traffic spikes/dropoffs are from rankings, indexation or search demand shifts Rankings and Traffic both Dropped

155. Page Two Rankings Referrals from Page 2

156. Action: Identify low hanging fruit that can be optimized quickly Could totally 301 this to www.opensiteexplorer.org

157. Engagement Analytics

158. Time on Site

159. Action: Compare to ROI metrics; if they correlate, improve on keywords/landing pages with low time on site Average “upgrade to PRO” visitor spent a whopping 44 minutes on SEOmoz!

160. # of Page Views

161. Action: Depending on your metrics, a “sweet spot” of pages browsed often dictates a conversion event – optimize towards it Average “upgrade to PRO” visitor visits 12X the pages of an average visitor

162. Repeat Visit Ratio

163. Action: Find what content/activities/referrers send engaged traffic and copy those while improving subpar pages

164. Sharing/Linking Activity “Sharing Activity” Conversions

165. Action: Find patterns/sources that predict sharing activities (both content and CTAs) and make them testable conversion events GA allows you to set custom actions as “goals” then filter, monitor and improve on these metrics

166. Latent Conversion Tracking

167. Removing Last-Click Attribution

168. Full Path Analysis

169. Initial Referrer www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-get-past-last-touch-attribution-with-google-analytics

170. ROI Analytics

171. Lifetime Customer Value

172. Cost of Acquisition

173. Return on Investment No. No. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. ROI = CLTV - CAC

174. Always Be Asking “What’s the ROI?” Get the ROI for every category (and subset)

175. New Research: Topic Modeling in the Search Results

182. Generate scores for top 10 rankings across several thousand search results

184. Tool to Test it Out http://www.seomoz.org/labs/lda

185. Tool to Test it Out http://www.seomoz.org/labs/lda

186. Tool to Test it Out We might need to work the “relevance” of our content http://www.seomoz.org/labs/lda

188. Search engines keep saying “make relevant content” – perhaps we can get more scientific and precise about what “relevant” means

190. Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog

191. Email: rand@seomoz.org