Netconcepts

SEO: How Creative Link Building Can Multiply Site Traffic

Patricia Fusco — Mon, 09 Jun 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

Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques

Stephan Spencer — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:24:29 +0000

Want to learn how to build a database of high-value link acquisition targets? Want to know how to get on the radar of nonprofits, government and university departments and compel them to give you some of that sweet, authoritative link love? Want to learn the most coveted secrets to “buying” the links the engines would never consider a “paid link?” This, along with non-traditional link sources, linking strategies and nofollow PageRank “scuplting” or “siloing” are covered in the session.

Moderator:
Greg Boser, President/CEO, 3 Dog Media

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts
Jay Young, Owner, Link Fish Media, Inc.

Tuesday, June 3rd - Day 1
10:45am - 12:00pm

Secrets for Getting More & Better Links for Higher Search Rankings

Stephan Spencer — Mon, 19 May 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

Screencast on Advanced SEO Tactics with Stephan Spencer and Rand Fishkin

Stephan Spencer — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:52:30 +0000

Join our founder and president, Stephan Spencer, along with renowned search guru Rand Fishkin, in this archived webinar of an information-packed 131-minutes of advanced SEO tips and tricks. This webinar, for MarketingProfs.com, was called “Advanced Tactics in SEO: Part Art, Part Science”. Ever wonder what the SEO pros know that you don’t? What tools they use every day that you don’t even know exist?

This screencast isn’t about search engine optimization fundamentals. You will learn how to take your search engine optimization skill set to the next level, even if you’re already a savvy search marketer.

Watch Stephan and Rand’s webinar as a streaming Flash video »

Or, alternatively download/watch as a Quicktime (m4v) movie (77 MB).

Screencast on Website Metrics with Stephan Spencer and Avinash Kaushik

Stephan Spencer — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:00:13 +0000

Join our founder and president, Stephan Spencer, along with renowned analytics expert Avinash Kaushik, in this archived webinar of an information-packed 101-minutes of website analytic tips and tricks. This webinar, for Lorman Education Teleconferences, was called “Website Metrics and ROI: Getting the Most out of Your Online Marketing Spend.”

Watch Stephan and Avinash’s webinar as a streaming Flash video »

Or, alternatively download/watch as a Quicktime (m4v) movie (77 MB).

SEO Report Card: Juvieshop.com

Jeff Muendel — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:55:57 +0000

The site focuses on hip, modern and stylish adolescent clothes for tweens (ages 7-12). Juvieshop.com is just over one-year-old and the site has built a PageRank of 3 for its homepage. Its theme is wholesome and the site is pleasant to the eye.

Jeff Muendel, Search Analyst for Netconcepts, covers a hip site that is targeted toward a specific age group in this website audit.

Jeff writes his recommendations based on his review of benchmarking, their Flash-rich home page, PageRank, title tags, and URLs. One of the most useful tips that Jeff provides is with regards to building links.

Inbound Links and PageRank
PageRank for the home page of the site is 3, which is low. This is easily explained by the number of inbound links the site has. Google sees exactly one link from an external site. Yahoo sees 909 links coming in, which is below average for an ecommerce site. Why the difference between the search engines? Yahoo! and Google are different technologies that simply “see” a different number of links. In actuality, the “real” number of links is most likely either number, and those numbers should be thought of as benchmarks or estimates. Regardless, a link-building program is in order here. PageRank is built primarily on the number of quality, inbound links to a given site. The higher the PageRank, the more likely it is that pages in a site will come up in Google and other search engines for a given query. High-quality directory submissions, like DMOZ (Dmoz.org), are definitely in order, which can help boost PageRank (and therefore search results) of a linked-to site. Remember, directory submissions (the act of submitting one’s site to directories) are an important part of an overall link building strategy. Juvie also has a blog, which can also attract inbound links, but it has not been updated in roughly two months. Fresh content is imperative for attracting traffic and potential links.

In this way, Jeff relays that targeted keyword themes and great on-page SEO aren’t the only elements necessary to ensuring a site’s SEO benefit — directory submissions, blogging, and fresh content are “imperative” to increasing inbound links over time and garnering good PageRank.

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

SEO for Really Big Websites

Stephan Spencer — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:05:56 +0000

Got a large, complex, database-driven website? Then you’re in luck, because such a site represents the best opportunity for capturing visitors from search engines such as Google. That’s because a large site has so much of what the engines love - content!

In this MarketingProfs seminar, you will gain best practices, invaluable tactics (such as “thin slicing”) and quick-hit tips and tricks. And you’ll discover what to avoid. All with real-world examples from major websites - both commercial and non-commercial.

How to expand into countless keyword markets
How to get many more pages indexed
How to optimize your HTML templates and CSS to make those pages “sing” to the search engines
How to pass your PageRank much more effectively through your site
How to build deep links to internal pages, not just to your home page
How to measure success using new (and little-known!) metrics and KPIs

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts
Chris Smith, Lead Search Strategist, Netconcepts

Video:
The first video seen below is the original 90-minute webinar featuring Stephan Spencer and Chris Smith. (The Quicktime file is 112 MB)

The second video is the Q&A section of the webinar, which was so long we did it as a separate recording, lasting 105 minutes. (The Quicktime file is 205 MB)