Netconcepts

SEO: How Creative Link Building Can Multiply Site Traffic

Patricia Fusco — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:13:09 +0000

The right links are fuel for a retail web site’s search engine rankings. But building the right links is among the most difficult, misunderstood and poorly executed aspects of search engine optimization. There are two kinds of links that retailers should focus on to improve such rankings. Links from an e-retailer’s product page to other relevant product pages within the site—with relevant, as judged by the search engine spider, being the keyword—is one type. But a retailer can’t just put a bunch of links on a site to achieve a higher rank without taking into account whether the links achieve business goals. Such links must make merchandising and business sense, otherwise they will interfere with the shopper’s experience and possibly have a deleterious effect on a retail site. The second kind of link is links coming into a site from external sources, which retailers have a lot less control over. A link from a hunting magazine to an outdoor retail site is a link from an authoritative external site and those kinds of links can boost a retailer’s search rankings. But they are much harder to achieve because they require persuading the outside site to link to the retailer’s site, a mostly manual process. This session will examine criteria for evaluating a link’s value, creative link building strategies, link building dos and don’ts, and how to leverage affiliates and social media content. It will tell attendees how seemingly innocent practices can undermine a search engine optimization program and how best practices in search marketing are likely to change in the near future.

Workshop Presenters:
P.J. Fusco, Senior Consultant, NetConcepts
Mark Kaufman, Associate Vice President, CNet Findability, CNet

Secrets for Getting More & Better Links for Higher Search Rankings

Stephan Spencer — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:42:32 +0000

Keyword-rich contextually relevant text links are like fuel for your web site’s search engine rankings. Without good links, you are relegated to the bottom of the search results heap. Link building is arguably the most difficult; the most misunderstood and poorly executed aspect to SEO. In this session, you will learn criteria for evaluating a link’s value, creative link building strategies, link buying do’s and don’ts, how to approach webmasters, how to leverage your affiliates, how social media can be leveraged to build links, dangerous tactics, and more!

Moderator: Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts

Panelists:
Neil Patel, Chief Technology Officer, Advantage Consulting Services
Seth Besmertnik, CEO, LinkExperts
Rhea Drysdale, Online Marketing Director, Less Everything

Desperately Seeking Links: Baiting, Buying, and Socializing for Links

Stephan Spencer — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:00:22 +0000

Keyword rich contextually relevant text links are like fuel for your website’s search engine rankings. Without good links, you are relegated to the bottom of the search results heap. Link building is arguably the most difficult, the most misunderstood and poorly executed aspect to SEO. Learn: criteria for evaluating a link’s value, creative link building strategies, link buying do’s and don’t’s, how to approach webmasters, how to leverage your affiliates, how social media can be leveraged to build links, dangerous tactics, and more!

Learning Points:

Link building efforts that went horribly awry and how to avoid repeating their mistakes
Concrete action steps to boost your site’s importance in the eyes of the search
engines
Demystify link building, debunking myths, presenting real opportunities, providing tools, sharing real world experiences

Moderator:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts

Panelists:
Eric Ward, Founder, The Ward Group
Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
Seth Besmertnik, CEO & Co-Founder, LinkExperts

SEO Report Card: Link Building Could Improve Strong Site

Jeff Muendel — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:33:31 +0000

Candlesandsuch.com is a website run quite frugally by its two main proprietors. For a site that hasn’t had a lot of professional help with regard to search engine optimization, it possesses some positive SEO attributes. That’s not to say there aren’t issues, but some of the main facets of good SEO are observed and incorporated.

In this SEO report card originally featured on Practical eCommerce, Netconcepts’ Search Analyst Jeff Muendel takes an in-depth look at how inbound links and sculpting PageRank can help improve the overall site.

Jeff writes how the ScanAlert Hacker Safe logo “bleeds PageRank away from every page, so add NoFollow tags to these links.” Here, the placement of the logo is also an issue since it’s “among the first pieces of code a search engine spider sees on each page. Moving the logo further down the page would be better.” Another valuable find that Jeff discovered was the fact that this site’s error pages were not delivering the proper 404 code, so outdated pages are not dropped from the search engines’ indexes.

In conclusion, Jeff recommends that:

A good link building campaign is what this site needs most! Read Stephan’s article called “Weaving A Web Of Links” for great suggestions on getting started. With that and a few technical changes, Candles And Such will have a website that is optimized at an above-average level. Once inbound links begin to build, they should reap the benefits of their SEO.

Ecommerce Clinic: Link Building and Social Media

Stephan Spencer — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:00:36 +0000

Keyword-rich text links are like fuel for your search engine optimization (SEO). Our panel of SEO experts will evaluate your link health and propose the cures - both tactical and strategic. If you want to venture beyond directory submissions and into “link baiting” and social media marketing to supercharge your rankings, then this session is for you.

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts
Neil Patel, CTO, Advantage Consulting Services
Eric Ward, Founder, The Ward Group
Rebecca Kelly, Search Marketing Consultant, SEOMoz

Organic Search Is All About the Links

Stephan Spencer — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:47:21 +0000

Links are the currency of search engines. Without good inbound links to your web site, your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts will be in vain. Link building is arguably the most difficult, most misunderstood, and most poorly executed aspect to SEO. Join SEO and link-building expert Stephan Spencer as he guides us through the quagmire showing us the way to great search engine rankings.

You will learn:

Google’s PageRank scores: red herring or useful metric?
What makes a link valuable or not
Creative strategies for building link-worthy content
What works when approaching webmasters with link requests
Pitfalls to avoid if buying or bartering links

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts

Link Building

Jacqui Jones — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:05:27 +0000

Link building is fast becoming one of the best ways to promote your site, find out how to master the basics & get you linking strategy up & running, great overview here.

Speaker:
Jacqui Jones, Natural Search Marketing Consultant, Netconcepts

Case Study: REI

Netconcepts — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:01:09 +0000

Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is a leading retailer of specialty outdoor equipment and clothing, with revenues reaching close to $1 billion a year. REI is also seen as a leader in multi-channel strategies, offering a consistent sales and brand experience to their members and customers — whether through the 70+ retail stores, REI.com, or their catalog business.

Problem

While REI.com had developed a successful online store, they knew their limited search engine visibility represented a key missed opportunity to drive additional traffic and sales. REI.com didn’t rank well in search engines for many of its top products and the majority of its web pages and products weren’t getting indexed, resulting in greatly reduced visibility. UJ Cha of REI Online said: “it was a problem we wanted to address right away”.
While REI has a great range of products, its website suffered from several problems that were causing many of these products to never appear in search engine indices. The dynamic URLs that were used across REI’s online catalog were a big part of the problem, resulting in the site never being fully spidered. Their natural search visibility problem was compounded by small but significant issues with page titles, site structure, page content and link text, for example.
Understanding they had a problem, REI chose to work with Netconcepts to address its natural search challenges.

Solution

Netconcepts produced an audit report on REI’s website listing the problems and making recommendations on how to optimize the site. Realizing that this task involved a significant amount of work, REI engaged Netconcepts to help make the changes. We began by simplifying the URLs to make them more accessible to search bots and then worked on refining the REI site. As UJ Cha states, “The site in general needed optimizing for search engines” and work was undertaken to ease navigation, focus on keywords and make the site more search engine friendly.
Along the way Netconcepts took the time to help REI’s staff learn more about SEO best practices. As REI changes and updates their website, this training will help them keep REI.com search engine optimal. Netconcepts continues to work with REI to assist with seasonal keyword targeting and further SEO refinement.

Results

UJ Cha comments: “Netconcepts’ work has been very helpful, so far we have been very happy with all the work we have done together in 2004. We have been able to achieve full indexing in Google and we have had a measurable natural search traffic and sales increase.”
UJ Cha continues; “We received more than a 200% gain from overall natural search sales and more than a 250% gain in “non-branded” natural search sales since the start of the engagement with Netconcepts. Having a successful natural search strategy nicely complements our already successful paid search campaigns”.
In fact, the full indexing by Google means thousands of REI’s products are now visible to web consumers that were never visible before. REI’s site visibility has increased by 1000%, increasing overall natural search sales.
“We have decided to renew our contract with Netconcepts for 2005. Netconcepts has opened our eyes, not just on the importance of many of these elements but on specifically how to implement best practices.”

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Case Study: figleaves.com

Netconcepts — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:28:23 +0000

figleaves.com, is the global leader of multi-brand intimate apparel etailers. The figleaves.com website features 250 brands and more than 30,000 items of lingerie, swimwear, sleepwear, activewear, menswear and hosiery. Brands range from designers such as La Perla and Andres Sarda to basic Playtex and Wacoal. Additionally, figleaves.com provides quality service to over 70 countries worldwide.

Challenge:

After establishing a headquarters in the United States, figleaves.com came to the realization that if they wanted to compete in the global market, they would need an expert SEO company. They had already engaged another search marketing company to help them with aspects of SEO, but figleaves.com wasn’t reaping the benefits that they expected and were starting to experience a decline in natural search traffic. figleaves.com was seeing moderate traffic for a variety of keywords but not seeing the natural search conversion they expected. They wanted to increase natural search traffic to the most relevant pages without making visitors dig through pages of results.

Solution:

Knowing the reputation of Netconcepts and the work of their president, Stephan Spencer, figleaves.com chose to consult with Netconcepts to complete a Natural Search Audit of their E-Commerce site. “Netconcepts’ audit process showed us all the areas of our site that needed attention, and helped us understand how to prioritize them to achieve a search optimized site,” stated Richard Brooks, Search Manager at figleaves.com. Netconcepts prescribed an initial focus on resolving structural barriers like URL structure, linking, and navigation before moving on to content optimization and other SEO tactics. “Netconcepts really helped us to clarify what our priorities should be,” stated Richard Brooks. “Netconcepts’ expert analysis and prioritization of our SEO issues helped us rally the support we needed in our organization to make some real SEO progress.”

Results:

Netconcepts provided the SEO methodology and program structure figleaves.com lacked internally to fully capitalize on their natural search potential. Within the first months of implementing Netconcepts’ recommendations, figleaves.com had already experienced a 40% increase in their natural search traffic. “We now rank on page one on Google for three of our most important keywords: “swimwear,” “underwear,” and “bras,” stated Richard Brooks. One of the most important influences in increasing rankings is the acquisition of back-links. Already, figleaves.com has more than doubled their number of back-links. Indexation alone has risen over 15% across Google, Yahoo, and MSN to top 300,000. Ed Bussey, Senior Vice President and Head of figleaves.com US had this to say, “We got great buy-in during our discussions and have seen great results from your recommendations. When we want to improve our SEO strategy further, we will come back to Netconcepts.”

Organic Search Is All About the Links

Stephan Spencer — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:42:05 +0000

You will learn:

Google’s PageRank scores: red herring or useful metric?
What makes a link valuable or not
Creative strategies for building link-worthy content
What works when approaching webmasters with link requests
Pitfalls to avoid if buying or bartering links

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts