Businesses: Raise your hand if you barely cared about Google+ until your SEO consultant called to say now you just have to. While the disproportionate weight Google is placing on + driven results may be unhealthy for SERPs in the short term, opening a relatively easy + door to bomb Google SERPs serves the function of enlisting SEOs to goad businesses into participating in Google’s fledgling social community.

Google’s strategy is brilliant, sort of like a sardonic dominatrix forcing her ambivalent quarry to capitulate with promises of immediate pleasure, ultimately resulting in long-term frustration for the poor S.O.B. that surrendered. Trust me, it won’t stay this easy to participate your way into SERPs via + as businesses flock to grab their share and mega authority profiles are grown by brand gorillas. Long term, true socialization will likely benefit SERPs. For now, one thing is sure: The SEO world is changing in radical ways. While (of course) we’d love you to hire a specialized consultant to counsel you on what to do next, here’s an awesome start without having to fork over mucho-sheckels. Read on as SEO industry pundits weigh in with gobs of actionable insights and tactics.

Google has tried to go social before. From the ill-conceived “Wave” to the “Buzz” debacle, they’ve failed  and gloriously to impel its throngs of users to take the leap to socialization in a Google environment. Conventional wisdom is that Google users don’t traffic Google to be social. At first, + was interesting but looked like it could be another ho-hum. That’s all changed now. SEOs like you and I are giddy lemmings, flocking and falling all over our feet, telling businesses that they too should participate in the land rush. Sadly, it’s true! “Calling all businesses! For the next 15 minutes Google organic prominence is easier than usual!”

Here are 32 totally free Google Plus Your World SEO Resources. From the greatest minds in the industry to niche trade pubs, have a gander:

• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”, Danny Sullivan, SearchEngineLand
• Why Every Marketer Now Needs a Google+ Strategy, Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
• Rank for Anything You Want on Google Search Plus Your World, Miranda Miller, Search Engine Watch
• When Search & Social Act Like Children, Users Lose, Lisa Barone, Outspoken Media
• Webmaster Reaction Towards Google Search, Plus Your World, Barry Schwartz, SearchEngineRoundTable
• Google Introduces ‘Search, Plus Your World’: Is Your Business Ready to Get Personal?, Jessica Bates, MasterGoogle
• How Google Search+ Your World Influences SEO Laurie Sullivan, MediaPost
• Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy, Danny Sullivan, SearchEngineLand
• What does Google’s social search mean for SEO? We ask the experts,  Nancy Messieh TNW Blog
• Twitter: Google+ Integration In Google Search Is “Bad” For Everyone, Matt McGee, Marketing Land
• Google+ for Business: 5 Things Marketing Professionals Should Know About Google+,  Ashley Zeckman TopRank, Online Marketing Blog
• What Google Personalized Search plus Your World Means for Marketing – SEO Tips, Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
• How Google Search Plus Your World Affects SEO, Sean, SEOHacker
• 5 Ways Google Search Plus Your World Impacts SEO, Jacob Stoops, Agent
• SEOGoogle’s “Search Plus Your World” Gets Personal, SEOHaus
• Google+ SEO AJ Kohn, Blind Five Year Old
• How Google Search Plus Your World Will Impact SEO, Marcus Taylor, SEOOptimise
• How Does Google’s Search Plus Your World Impact Adwords and Other Forms of Online Marketing?, Joe Mangum, SEOmoz
• How To Rank On Page One Of Google’s Personalized Search, SEO Philosophy5
• §  Harsh Truths About Google’s ‘Search Plus Your World’ Update, Obaidul Haque, SearchEngine Marketing Group
• Google Search, Plus Your World: Where Google Plus and SEO Converge, Jannette Pazer, Dragon Search
• Search Plus Your World: Google’s SEO Game Changer, Stephanie Cain, The Right Click
• ‘Google Search, Plus Your World’ – An SEO’s Perspective, Mike, Digital Marketing Blog
• Google+ for SEO? Don’t Focus on Your Brand Page!, Eric Wittlake, B2C
• Building Authority and Influence in Google, Kaiserthesage
• Three Reasons Google Search Plus Your World Will Change Your World, Vocus Blog
• Google Rocks SEO With Search Plus Your World, OptimizeThis
• Get Yourself Featured in New Google Search Plus Your World Personalized Search, Mark Traphagen, Virante Orange Juice
• Google ‘Search Plus Your World’ Brings Google+ Into Search Results, Michael Liedtke, HuffingtonPost

Additional Resources, Added “Post” Humously

• 30 Hands On Google Search Plus SEO Techniques for Getting Personal, Tadeusz Szewczyk, OnReact
• eBook from our friends at SearchInfluence, Using Google Plus For Business

This post shares new and traditional measurement options to sooth the savage SEO.  We’ll also offer a different take on organic keyword tracking, based on page level semantic cluster analysis using Webmaster Tools to mash in keywords, missing as a result of Google’s encrypted search. SO… read the whole post or skim down now for the sexy stuff. OK, let’s get started solving the new success measurement riddle-SEO, brothers and sisters! We’ll start with the most basic solutions like ranking reports, Bing data and new vs. returning organic keyword visitors + conversion. Then, we’ll progress to more radical approaches using Webmaster Central, you may not have thought of yet.

Background: Read It & Weep
Since the onset of Google’s encrypted search, which masks keyword data in analytics for users signed into Google.com, the effect has been astonishing. Though Matt Cutts told Danny Sullivan that, “Even at full rollout, this would still be in the single-digit percentages of all Google searchers on Google.com,” the real effect is highly vertical-specific. For instance, aimClear Blog lost keyword data for nearly 23% of organic visitors for November of 2011. We’ve seen significantly higher percentages on client sites.

Google actually has no actual privacy argument for masking the data because AdWords PPC passes keyword data just fine. Yep, big G has finally confirmed their long-rumored disdain for SEOs. It’s gross, really. Still, there’s no use crying over spilled keywords, so let’s just move along and find ways to operate in this more challenging environment.

Obviously this development makes measuring SEO success a bit more of a challenge, but not insurmountable. To Google’s credit they’ve also provided important capabilities, though still strategically limited, in Webmaster Tools. Our take is that keyword data is still there to be had with a little ingenuity, though organic conversion at the keyword level is a problem. There are a number of effective Webmaster Tools hacks that provide plenty of insight as to how SEO efforts are progressing, including mashing conversion at the page level, with good (though not empirical) semantic insight from both Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. We’ll talk about that in a bit.

From mild to wild, here are solutions to consider:

Unpersonalized Ranking Reports
I know, I know, I’ve been saying that ranking reports were dead for years now. That all changes (again) with the Google’s masked organic keyword referrals. We like the SEOMoz and Raven ranking report tools the best, but there are others. Unpersonalized ranking reports actually matter slightly now for perspective on SEO efforts and to track progress of keywords in regionalized SERPs.  Such reports provide a general glimpse of how pages are performing at the KW level, trending, etc. Remember though: Actual users consume personalized SERPs and ranking reports don’t give any insight as to deep personalization. Average Position in Google Webmaster Tools provides additional perspective.  Ironically, some executives never stopped believing in ranking reports. LOL, now that they matter a little bit again, there’s nothing to sell. It’s back to the freakin’ future.

Overall & Bucketed Organic Search Traffic & Conversion
Though the method is as zoomed out, using Analytics to measure overall organic keyword traffic and conversion provides some insight. You can also run organic conversion at a granular level for keywords you can still see and run bucketed conversion numbers for those you can’t see.  This is the metrics approach that most businesses will understand and SEOs will use.  Keep reading for additional “basic” methods and then more intensive approaches.

Analytics New Vs. Returning Visitor/Organic Keyword
We think clients understand when SEO efforts yield new visitors from organic keywords, whether or not we can see all of the keywords responsible for traffic.  The report is easily accomplished using the Visitors report with keywords as the secondary dimension. Clients also seem to understand bucketed organic conversion from new visitors. Again, granular reports are available for whatever percentage of search traffic is not masked and the rest can be bucketed as a lump. This report is easy for aimClear Blog because we did not run PPC during for these days, so it’s all organic search traffic. That said, it’s not hard to use Advanced Segments to filter out PPC traffic.

Bing Organic Keyword Traffic
This is not sexy (skim down for sexy), but for larger sites, don’t rule out the usefulness of Bing as a measure of SEO performance. Yes, the search engines are different. Yes, Bing’s volume is not as great. However, at present Microsoft is not masking organic keyword data. We’ve looked back at Bing organic keyword conversion data vs. Google and, while different, it’s clear that in an age where we can’t see Google organic KW data, it’s better to have Bing data at hand than not.

Google Webmaster Tools: Keyword Impressions, Diversity & Average Position
Even before Google pulled the transparency plug, savvy SEOs were already using Webmaster Tools to measure increased keyword diversity, organic impression count, and rising or declining CTR (click through ratio). Such metrics are also very valuable because they’re apples-to-apples with PPC measurement, which provides a common denominator to calculate how organic traffic dilutes the cost of pay per click.

The screenshot below is the “Top queries” tab of the “Keywords” report. To measure success, keep track of organic keyword volume (Impressions), diversity (Queries), and rank (Avg. position). Monitoring CTR in light of rank gives SEOs wonderful insight as to how well the tag creative performs. We’re speaking of course of the title tag, which is essentially a headline in the organic SERPs. To the extent that meta description tags actually make it to the SERPs these days, the CTR/Avg. position also speaks to the effectiveness of the description which, when displayed, is the body copy of the organic ad. Sadly, Google does not display all impressions or clicks. This is in keeping with their philosophy of giving webmaster crucial information but not enough to easily impact SERPs by SEO. Boo.

In the Keywords report, filters are cool for culling keyword trends subsets segmented by image, mobile, smartphone mobile, videos, web, geography, and queries with more than ten impressions/clicks. Use this feature to distill data by various subsets to gauge performance along different lines of inquiry.

Filters are also super cool to create “concept groups” of keywords to track.

It’s notable that filtering down to a small enough subset of keywords seems to mitigate the transparency problem. All impressions and clicks are shown in this example.

Google Webmaster Tools: Top Pages Impressions, Diversity & Avg. Position
Click the “Top Pages” tab for (to my mind) the most useful report of them all.  This incredibly actionable report shows which pages in the site performed best organically and, better yet, a list of keywords responsible for the success. The reason this report is so actionable is because clicking on the little “+” or the link to any page expands to a list of keywords driving traffic to that page (second screen capture).

Of course, Google limits transparency by reporting <10 as opposed to actual numeric data. Are you catching the theme here? Google gives webmasters data, enough to help them keep sites from sucking, while not revealing enough actionable information to allow SEOs to really mold the page semantically, thus maximizing the importance of spending money on Google PPC products.

Over in Analytics, obviously we can’t measure organic keyword conversion for the “Keyword not provided” bucket. Measuring granular organic keyword conversion, for visitors with masked data, is simply not possible using any software. However, it’s useful to matriculate organic traffic and conversion at the page level, using analytics, with the keywords Webmaster tools reveals as primary drivers to that page. This does not tell us empirically which keywords are responsible for that page’s conversion, however it does give us decent insight as to the keyword cluster causing conversion. Mashing up:

• Page Traffic & conversion from keywords you CAN see in  analytics+
• Overall traffic & conversion at the page level in analytics +
• Page level keywords you can mostly see in Webmaster tools =
• A decent understanding of the “keyword not provided” bucket in analytics

In other words, Webmaster tools provides a snapshot the missing keyword granularity in analytics. Welcome to the age of measuring organic keyword clusters at the page level to prove #SEO. There are barriers, like what data is available on the Webmaster Tools API or exportable. You need to build your own data extraction API to use such a tool.  It was clear to us as we explored this issue, exactly where Google made sure to limit the usefulness of Webmaster Tools data.  Moving on…

Again, filters are your friends when it comes to page level measurements, along similar lines as the Keyword report filters.

Moving On
It’s apparent the encrypted keyword change is a paradigm buster that makes measuring SEO more of a task. Still, the problem is far from unbeatable and we think everybody should relax. There is useful data for those willing to work at methodology. Most notably, digging into the semantic “cluster” concept at the page level, with good though not empirical  insight from Webmaster Tools, is the way to go. Happy measuring!

Spaceman Image: © Byron Moore – Fotolia . com

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at #SMX East, on a panel that focused entirely on SEO KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). As search engine optimization has become inexorably intertwined with social media and universal SERPs, so too has the spectrum of goals diverged from keyword-traffic-only-measurements marketers looked to in days of old. In the true spirit of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid), we set out to reduce classic and potential KPI data points to a streamlined chart, expressing a matrix of analytic possibilities.

At aimClear we use this chart to spawn creative thinking as we construct new SEO metrics that reflect evolving SEO realities. From the most basic traffic KPIs to multi-level social/SEO mashups, brainstorming on this grid of analytic options is of benefit to our team. A look at how to construct KPIs follows.

Fundamentals, Top Down Start with five variables above the gray line: category keywords (non brand), brand keywords, links, shares and social visibility. All of these building blocks can result in traffic.

Path One: Straight Down To The Left Or To The Right
Follow the arrows to either the left or right from the building blocks to “On Page,” “Off Page” or “Segmentation” to form KPIs, a sampling of which includes:

• Brand keyword conversion
• Category keywords by geographic location
• Shares (in social media) that lead to impressions in the organic SERPs
• Category keyword traffic that results in traffic
• Links resulting in engagement and/or chatter
• Social visibility that results in loyal visitors (who return often)
• Links that drive traffic that leaves the site outbound to social
• Shares by time of day
• Increasing diversity of category keywords

Path Two: Left Then Right
Follow the arrows down to the left and then to the right. This yields SEO KPIs that are more complex, including:

• Shares resulting in conversion segmented by geographic area
• Converting category keywords that dilute the CPA (because to buying those keywords are very expensive) by time-of-day.
• Social visibility that cross pollinates to other channels that result in likes
• Links to off site properties (like YouTube) that boost organic prominence in Universal SERPs for Geographic specific keywords.
• Engaged traffic from link referral traffic that converts later via search PPC, as evidenced by measuring attribution.

There are 640 possibilities on this this chart, many of which are already widely adopted. Others range from innovative and immediately useful to more theoretical expressions.

Creating mechanisms to report on some of these KPIs is an interesting matter. Some combinations are super easy to conceptualize and execute in Google Analytics, using Advanced Segments, and other analytic packages. Others require more sophisticated systems, are difficult to isolate or even impossible to measure except for “feeling” lift.

There is no be-all-and-end-all KPI-construction solution. We don’t hold this chart out to be perfect and would welcome ideas and contributions to rearrange the variables we chose or add others.  The idea is to get those creative KPI juices flowing. We hope you enjoy this chart as a starting place for creative SEO KPI thinking!

Welcome back to Day 2 of aimClear’s #SMX East 2011 coverage! The heavyweight battle between SEO and PPC has long graced the stage at mainstream online marketing conferences. Organic optimization in the red corner, paid search in the blue corner – powerful opponents seemingly fighting for a greater stake of your company budget.

Despite the provocatively titled session, suggesting a gloves-off bloody-nosed to-the-victor-go-all-my-marketing-dollars type scenario, attendees often walked away with a deeper understanding of and respect for the powerful combined forces of PPC and SEO. Yes, speakers would make their case for one or the other, but in the end everyone would agree that it just doesn’t make good sense to have one without the other, and that the most companies integrate a healthy blend of both PPC and SEO to ensure sustainable success online.

It’s often all sunshine and pussy cats after the end of these sessions… but that harmony doesn’t always translate back in the office. Allowing intra-office competition between PPC and SEO teams is a surefire way to shoot your business in the foot, miss opporutnities, and make life shi more difficult.

Fortunately for marketers at #SMX East 2011, moderator Brad Geddes, Founder, Certified Knowledge, Q&A moderator Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance, and speakers Tim Mayer, Chief Strategy Officer, Trada, David Roth, Sr. Director, Search Marketing, Yahoo and… Brad Geddes again, were ready to set aside the debate and share profound tips for getting SEOs and PPCers to not only coexist peacefully, but learn from one another.

aimClear live-tweeted this lively Day 2 session via @beebow. Read on for the full effect.Brad took the stage and welcomed Tim, our first speaker.

“Search marketing has become the umbrella term across PPC and SEO,” Tim led off. People need to look at both these factors holistically.

Looking at the SERPs, PPC CTR = about 12% while SEO CTR = about 60-70%. Tim’s worked with many marketers who ask, ”Why should we optimize to show the same result in organic if we’ve already showed it in the paid section?” Conversely, some SEOs complain, “I already appear in organic #1! Why should I spend money on PPC for that term?”

Aren’t these two examples of surefire cannibalization?

Nope. They’re not. Let’s look at the math.

• Incremental ad clicks from PPC and SEO together = 89% (based on a July 2011 study)
• Incremental clicks examples – Advertiser spends $1k / month, results in 400 organic clicks and 300 paid clicks.
• Incremental clicks example – Advertiser cuts ad spend to $0, results in 500 organic clicks and 0 paid clicks.

What Tim’s Learned From Managing Commerce Sites with SEO & PPC Team

• Common success criteria. Conversions/ROAs vs. # of referrals to a website.Ranking is nice, but the click is better!  Important click determinants: KW title, branded URL, and KW in context in description.

A/B test your organic titles in PPC to see what works. Gem. Genius. Do it.

• Collaborative KW research. Determine where volume is in PPC to drive content generation efforts and SEO KW efforts.
• Examine site analytics for natural search to look for new KWs to test for PPC campaign.
• Use PPC and analytics to optimize landing pages. SEO traffic going to content-rich/low monetization content. Monetize more effectively with ads, create widgets to drive traffic into higher value areas of site, integrate & merchandise higher valued and relevant items. In summation, drive PPC traffic to A/B landing pages for quick iteration.
• Reduce impact of major changes. One box coverage, new design, site resign, new product launch, seasonal promotions & sales, etc. Ramp up PPC until SEO kicks in, then test with and without PPC. When your SEO and  PPC teams communicate together, you can better manage the traffic & revenue flow from an overall basis.
• Segment traffic! Try different landing pages for different types of traffic. Direct traffic = navigation or branded terms, SEO, PPC, etc. Consider different monetization levels: Higher monetization = higher $/PV = higher bid.

Tim wraps up and turns it over to David Roth. On the menu: Discoverability, sharing the page, cross-channel data, & attribution. Here’s some high-level takeaways from this dense, insightful preso:

• Considering buying paid ads even if you rank well organically (for brand terms)?
• One approach:
  • Target bran KW
  • Baseline SEO traffic
  • Buy the ad
  • Alternate buying vs. not buying
  • Be aware of cyclicality/seasonality
  • Gather all the data you can,
    Estimate CTRs
  • Use scatter plots to chart results
• In this example, when David bought the paid link, it increased the CTR on the organic listing.

Summary: Organic makes a difference. Fill in the gaps with paid. Paid vs. Organic is more about math than philosophy.

Brad (as a speaker…) was up next, to discuss the relationship between SEO & PPC with a rather literal metaphor.

What do 12 year olds do when they like someone? They sucker-punch them. In the beginning, when they were both “young,” SEO and PPC fought like two kids with crushes on one another. Over the years, they’ve grown up, and started dating. Eventually, they got engaged. Now, it’s time for them to get married. We need to marry SEO and PPC within our own companies and online marketing efforts if we want a happy ending.

“What is an ad?” Brad asks. It is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take action. Guess what? That’s exactly what your compellingly-written organic listing does, too. Ergo, the goal of PPC and SEO is exactly the same. Why, then, all the talk about competition between the two?

[Br]advice for Leveraging PPC to test SEO
(That’s advice form Brad, get it?)

• Test Tags. Take your potential title tags, make them ad copy, test with PPC, see what yields a better CTR. Make the winners your SEO tags.
  • (Note: If all you do is SEO, work with your paid search team – your approach to writing title tags may be slightly different than what it takes to make a good ad. Vice versa.)
• Test Homepages. PPC is great for homepage testing, too. Make potential homepages the landing for brand traffic in PPC. Which LP gets better conversions? Test and find out.
  • (Note: This is where robots.txt files are essential. SEOs know this. PPCs might not. Make sure to block right pages so you don’t harm SEO efforts.)
• Test Templates. Use PPC to test site design templates. Paid search teams and SEO teams have to design together, because ultimately, these are not dedicated PPC pages. They’re test pages for SEO purposes.

Are you noticing a trend? In all of these scenarios, it is vital for the PPC team to work with the SEO team. Each is invaluable to the other. They are both completely involved with these tests.

Brad cruised through a heaping handful of examples showcasing SEO CTR, SEO conversion rate, PPC CTR, PPC conversion rate, and SEO+PPC CTR as well as SEO+PPC conversion rate, but they weren’t the easiest thing to capture on-the-fly. Suffice it to say – in pretty much every case, when SEO and PPC joined forces, the results were favorable, in every sense.

That about does ‘er, folks! Stay tuned for more coverage from #SMX East 2011, right here in aimClear blog.

Google’s recent modification of how link data is categorized in Webmaster Tools had observant SEO practitioners and clients asking interesting questions. If you’re wondering if it’s time to put the brakes on rolling up your subdomains as an SEO tactic because of this Google change, this post has important information.

To be clear, though Big “G” tossed around twenty-five cent words like “reclassification,” there is now confirmation that the update changed nothing algorithmically and only affects how Google displays existing link data in Webmaster tools.

Google is now displaying subdomain data in the “internal links” section instead of the previous “links to your site” section in Webmaster tools. This is a subtle change webmasters have been asking about for years.

There are currently no additional user-controls/options/functions that didn’t exist before. After the Reorganization announcement, nobody published observations noting changes in the SERPs.  Still, there was a lot of reckless speculation as to whether an algorithmic shift had actually taken place in regards to subdomains. It did not.

Below are some additional resources if you’re interested in the greater discussion:

• New: Google Classifies Subdomains As Internal Links Within Webmaster Tools
• Google Redefines External, Internal Links in Webmaster Tools
• Google Classifies Subdomains As Part Of The Main Domain Now
• Google Changes Classification of External and Internal Links

Again, this only a cosmetic change to how subdomain links are counted in Google Webmaster Tools and there is no change to how links pass PageRank. This is not a solution/substitute/alternative method for what SEO pros try to achieve by consolidating Subdomains as part of classic SEO strategy.

photo credit: JD Hancock

Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of #SES San Francisco! A true content wizard, Lee Odden’s (@leeodden) Content Marketing Optimization session reminded the audience that content can make or break your website. When you’re looking to optimize your site, you have to take everything from rich media to web pages to digital assets to PDF documents to both created and shared content into account. Always remember: “If it’s searchable, it’s optimizable.”

With so many people looking to break into the already well-established online marketing realm, brand marketers have to go after the Holy Grail of content marketing optimization – that is to say, they must be efficient and improve the impact of their SEO and social media efforts. aimClear live-tweeted this session via @ericasendros Keep on reading for the real deal.

What does content marketing do for SEO? And where does it fit within an online marketing program? As content marketers, we create messages that are easily discoverable and share the content with people we connect with. Everything you create within your social network qualifies as content, and this applies to brands as well. As more companies adopt the brand as publisher, we see an increase in social content creation. The competitive landscape in search is leading to companies beginning to to expand their content circles to new types of media – everything from webinars to white papers to blogs to case studies. People want their data in a variety of ways, and it’s imperative to utilize every avenue of media that you can if you want to reach a wider audience. Create videos and write articles, guest blog, reach out to other thought-leaders to have them guest blog on your own site. Be proactive. Optimize all your content.

Sage Advice from a Master of the Online Marketing Craft
If you are a content creator searching for success, there are two things you must do:

• Make your content findable
• Make your content sharable

If nothing else, people need to be able to see what it is you’re trying to share. By spreading optimized content across various types of media, they will be able to find it in more place than one, thus increasing the chances they will share your content. Content marketing is basically just aligning customers’ needs with a brand’s objective.

How do you even get started writing your content? Lee suggests looking at segmentation of different customer groups as well as personas. What groups do your customers fall into? Find out and cater your content to them.

One Large Cup of Fresh Content, Please
The most effective SEO tactic is to have good content, but that’s also the most difficult to maintain. Creating new, fresh ideas on a regular basis (and optimizing them) is what makes a brand climb to the top of the search engine results.

If you want to write quality content, you need to have a process – a cyclical relationship with the community so you can have new and original ideas everyday. Reward your community for sharing, and they will continue to share. People like nothing better than to be recognized for their ideas, and by keeping your community happy, you’ll be opening the doors for more people to share content and original thoughts with you.

Companies should create content that can be optimized. Why go through the trouble of writing a thoughtful piece or shooting an informational video if you’re not going to optimize it? If you’e not going to optimize it, chances are it won’t be easily findable. Expending significant time on content should be rewarded with optimization. Generally, most of the head honchos in a company think they need to optimize their products or services first because that will ultimately result in more sales. This is certainly true, but what many managers fail to realize is how important it is for news, press releases and general information to be optimized. A customer is more likely to find your company or your product if your entire website is in keen optimization mode. There is a tremendous opportunity for SEOs to work with PR people, industry analysts and bloggers.

At Your Service, Dear Customer!
People are always searching Google for forums that will provide an answer to their question. Increase customer satisfaction by making their answer readily available, optimized, and easily navigable. Remember: Whatever can be searched can be optimized. Everything from images to video to tweets to Facebook updates to LinkedIn updates and Microsoft Office documents. These media types can be ranked on their own, but optimizing them makes them more findable. If it’s more findable, that’s less work for your customer.

Make sure that you master optimization for content across the customer’s buying cycle. What are you doing to optimize for customer experience?

Strategy, Strategy, Strategy!
After you have achieved the high quality content you want, you will need to work toward content marketing optimization and social media optimization. Here’s how:

• Research customer segments.
• Identify search keywords and social topics that are relevant to your customer needs.
• Content and promotion plan:
  • Where will you promote it?
  • Where will you re-purpose it?
  • Companies often publish their content only to never use it again.
  • Plan how to re-use your content.
• Optimize, socialize and promote your content. Grow your network everyday.
  • Who do you follow and associate with?
  • What are your customers content preferences?
  • How do they discover, consume and share content?
  • What are they looking for on search engines?
  • Align your business goals with the needs of your consumer.

A lot of SEOs optimize existing content for particular phrases they think will be most searched. That’s not enough to create relationships with customers. Find out why your customers want that product. Harvest the dialogue, organize it by keywords, and answer their questions. Collect data, identify commonalities, and cluster common characteristics.

Where do we get the data? Ask customers! If you were to search for a product, where would you search? What would you search for?

Courtesy of freefoto.com

Some Questions Worth Asking… Yourself

• Which phrases do competitors optimize?
• What high level keywords do you want to be known for?
• How will you promote that blog post?
• Where will you re-purpose it?
• What media will you include?
• How can you make it interactive?
• What are the top level concepts you want to dominate?
• Is this piece of content useful and interesting?

Bottom Line: If You Create Good Stuff, People Will Share It
Press releases that have embedded media far exceed press releases that are comprised of text alone in performance. To achieve more coordinated content, use a mix of different media types to appease all customers. Contributed articles and guest blog posts can be useful, but how do you find a willing, well-respected guest blogger? It’s as simple as checking search results for guest bloggers and reaching out to them. Most bloggers will love the exposure, especially if the blog is the center of your site. Are you being creative with getting your content out there? Creating networks at the end of each distribution channel is important. Its not enough to provide optimized content.

So, you’re ready to apply content SEO. Now what?
Oftentimes, the most difficult part of kicking off an optimization project is knowing where to start. If you’re in that boat, try these practical tips:

• Audit existing content and focus on current content and digital asset optimization.
• Optimize priority content and add new content according to marketing/PR purposes following SEO best practices.
• Re-vamp! Develop new site content and a new editorial plan while adding content according to keywords.

8 Ideas For Fresh Content
Tired of the same old content? Running low on fresh ideas? Need a new burst of energy? Try one of these eight tips Lee suggests:

• Google alert keywords – provide commentary and insight.
• Create short lists of tips according to keyword themes.
• Compile large collections of resources according to theme. As you find things online, collect them and categorize them. Over time, you will accrue a substantial list.
• Interview other bloggers. Either ask many bloggers one question or ask several questions to one blogger.
• Aggregate the best comments from other blogs and turn that into your own analysis.
• Run surveys, polls and contests that result in content. What did you discover?
• Get your staff to ask you questions, and answer as a blog post. It’s a gold mine for coming up with content ideas!
• Collect services/sales/FAQ information and then write about them.

Eureka! So THAT’s what they mean by content marketing optimization
Online competition is fierce. As marketers, we need to embrace our creativity and make it as accessible as possible. Let’s take the initiative to always remain one step ahead of our competitors. If your competition is performing, borrow their popularity by interacting in their conversation. After you’ve furiously produced some fresh, stimulating content and optimized it to Timbuktu, your competition will be the one trying to interact with you.

Remember what’s important! You have to be customer-centric, and you need a good team. Train your copywriters on SEO best practices, and go holistic with social and SEO. Likewise, you will need to train your SEOs on how to create an efficient content strategy. Lastly, don’t forget to set reasonable, adaptable goals and create feedback mechanisms to stay in contact with your customers and community.

Big thanks to Lee for an awesome session! Keep checking aimClear Blog for more conference coverage

Unless you’ve got a time machine, it’s not always realistic to achieve a sustainable CPA (cost per action) by way of paid cost-per-click online marketing channels alone. This post offers a pragmatic multi-channel scenario to prove the significant financial benefits of SEO, social media, and public relations for CPA-pumping traffic and conversion. In the early days, target CPAs were usually attainable solely by paid online advertising. That said, for years we’ve advised clients to establish their customer base while advertising costs in new channels remained low. For instance, in 1999 and 2000 the rising cost of Overture PPC blew our doors off as the bargains waned. Early adopters who had already built their brand with inexpensive/high yield pay per click were already hooked up.  Others were left in the dust.

The phenomena of continual cost increases, commensurate to new advertising channels’ growth, proved especially radical in 2003 and 2004 as Google’s AdWords search PPC program steadily increased in cost. The 2X-4X per-click cost upsurges were no surprise to those early adopters, who realized the emergent PPC channel’s value. Starting in 2008, aimClear counseled clients to leverage Facebook’s massive growth before the general business public caught on to the might and focus of social graph PPC. We were oh-so right. The $0.30 cent click in August ‘08 now can cost upwards of $3.10.  Hate to say, “We told ya so…”

Yes, there have been killings to be made for online marketers who embraced nascent channels and rode them to glory, but those splendid days are long gone. For many products it’s just no longer possible to attain reasonable target-CPAs with paid advertising alone. Sure, AdWords, Facebook Ads, Microsoft Ad Center, YouTube, boutique CPM banner buys, emergent mobile networks, trade desks and other paid advertising channels offer fertile and focused marketplaces, but the cost of these channels alone or in combination, in many cases is just too high now.  More than ever, diluting the CPA to a reasonable price absolutely requires SEO (search engine optimization), social media, public relations and other classic means to drive focused website traffic and conversion.  Ready? Get our your calculators out marketers. Here we go!

Make Projections, Channel By Channel
More and more, prospective paid advertising clients are coming to us with a target CPA and projected conversion volume that’s based on fantasy as opposed to what can actually be accomplished with only paid. Don’t get me wrong… we’ll strive for any goal remotely possible with vim and vigor. That said, you might wish for 5,000 monthly conversions at a sub-$15.00 CPA and less then $80K of total monthly expense including agency fees, but wishing does not make it so. The reality is that these days target-CPAs are evermore dependent on other marketing modes a la SEO, PR and PR driven news.

The best starting point to determine how much organic lift is required is to look at each paid channel and do realistic projections. As a caveat, be mindful that projections in any channel are vertical-dependent and should be expressed as a range of possibilities. One marketer’s overpriced conversion is another’s insanely cheap win. We’ll start with reasonably attainable numbers in an “average” vertical, if there is such a thing. In each channel we may be able to sharpen both CTR (click through ratio) to lower the CPC and then tweak landing page conversion. But for now, we’ll examine reasonable projection points to start the discussion. For the purpose of this exercise, we’re aiming at monthly numbers that are on the lower side of very good.

Let’s start with Google AdWords. We’re commencing with only 400K monthly impressions because, for our hypothetical KPI, we’ve limited the fruit of our keyword research to true “shopping” searches where users clearly demonstrate conversion intent.

Great! Let’s do projections for the next paid channel, in quest of our target-CPA and conversion volume. Facebook Ads are an entirely different animal. Featuring high impressions and much lower CTR, when done properly, conversion can rival search. Interestingly enough the high impression volume tends to impact search channels with branding power. Realistically, to be most focused, conversion count from Facebook Ads may be lower with a higher CPA. It stands to reason. As awesome as FB social graph targeting can be, it’s still contextual or “walk by traffic” and not quite as focused always as search laced with obvious intent. The numbers below are a bit ambitious but doable for shrewd marketers.

When wielded in the right hands, Google’s contextual product, the “Display Network,” can yield results roughly analogous to Facebook display. We’ll project 12 million impressions. The statistics below are common. The Display Network’s targeting is not quite as focused as Facebook Ads so, in our experience, it converts at a slightly lower rate. Again, keep in mind that every one of these channels is vertical-dependent and should be projected in a range of scenarios. Higher CTR in the Display Network is possible.

For some products, especially B2B that can be targeted to certain occupations, LinkedIn Ads can be an effective channel. LinkedIn Ads are overpriced but can be used to push conversion volume and brand if you don’t mind hurting the overall CPA a bit. Volume and branding matter so let’s include LinkedIn. We’ll keep things totally focused and only plan on 2 million monthly impressions. The CTR will be lower and CPC higher. Though the overall expense is relatively low, LinkedIn would be the first channel to eliminate to lower the cost in this scenario. However, our tests show that LinkedIn’s branding effect seems to lift search CTR and conversion enough to justify the small amount of conversions at a higher CPA.  That’s a whole blog post in itself.

Dial in typical Bing/Yahoo! search.  The impressions are less than Google. Since it’s search, the CPA will likely be attractive compared to other channels in the paid advertising mix.

SEO Factor: Existing Organic Blended With CPC Channels
Most of these paid case studies also include at least one organic traffic source at some level. Often the main website is not fully optimized for discoverability, CTR from SEO and conversion, but still performs to an extent. Once your credentials are verified, Google Webmaster Tools provides a high level overview of impressions and CTR data for the most prevalent organic queries driving traffic to your site. It’s not a complete picture, but is still quite helpful.

Here are metrics of an established site sporting SEO results that could be considered underperforming. The fact that there are only 20K monthly visitors is not a red flag on it’s own, though we’d like to see a higher visitor count. The low organic CTR and conversion site-wide are much bigger problems. Perhaps the title tags are optimized to rank and not focused on incenting clicks. Or worse, they’re not optimized at all. The site itself most likely does not have much of a conversion focus. Still, traffic and conversion that already exists count towards the overall CPA. Factor in existing SEO traffic. For perspective on organic impressions, Google Webmaster Tools reports that aimClear Blog had 300K organic impressions from June 29 to July 29 with approximately a 1.8% CTR site-wide. The projections below are for an established industrial site with many more pages and a much lower CTR.

Add It All Up! The Average CPA, Paid & Existing Organic
Add it all up for a look at the overall CPA and conversion volume.  This assumes your team can execute AdWords search, Google Display Network, Facebook Ads, Microsoft AdCenter and LinkedIn Ads in-house… possibly a tall order.

Calculate Agency Fees
It’s rare to have a company, spending only a half million a year on paid advertising, that has the kind of expertise to accomplish the numbers put forward in these projections. Let’s be real and add in $10K a month in agency fees, a relatively low price for that much paid-channel work at least in the first six months. The agency fee, in this scenario, increases the CPA by about 17.5% from $23.85 to $28.90. It always cracks me up when prospective clients try to negotiate down from our first-six-months price proposal for this much work. Each $1K of agency fees only effects the overall CPA by approximately 2%… hardly enough to squabble about if the agency can actually figure out how to achieve sales or generate leads on the Internet.

The SEO Effect
Now comes the fun part. Great organic CTR is (of course) dependent on well-written title tags and either well-crafted descriptions or, in this case, social buzz that recommends the content.

It’s not uncommon to achieve 15%-18% organic CTR for queries with an average rank in the top 2 positions and 1.8% CTR site-wide total across all organic impressions from any average rank. We’ve seen even higher CTRs, upon occasion, for longer tail searches.

Aside from classic and emergent SEO ranking factors, focus search engine optimization on optimized title tag writing for CTR and landing page conversion.  Design those ads to earn qualified clicks and not just comma delimited SEO junk.  We’ll also start a modest content program to attain traffic from even more mid and long tail keywords. There are many on-page methods to lift conversion, including standardized form locations, phone number placement, contextually relevant calls to action in the header, etc…

A good principle to keep in mind is that, in SEO, every page is a landing page. Treat every page in the site as such.

Let’s raise the agency fees to $12K a month over the first six months and dial in the improved performance bump. Over six months the additional $12,000 tacked onto our agency of record deal is fair. Assume that we are able to increase the traffic about 28.5% but pump CTR and conversion in a big way.

Against agency fees, the CPC for the additional 36K SEO monthly visitors is about $0.05 (5.5 cents?) and overall SEO CPA will now be $2.60. Of course, the reason the SEO work only costs $12K over six months is because it’s an add-on to the agency of record paid advertising deal. The SEO by itself would be higher standalone, but still a great value. Terrific! Now the average CPA is falling and conversion count rising.  Still, we’re shy of that fantasy sub-$15 CPA and we don’t have enough conversion yet. Time for good old fashioned PR and social media!

Public Relations, News & Social Factors
Straight up: PR and social can pay richly. At the end of the day well-organized buzz matters a ton, financially. Like SEO, public relations and social media are far from free, but are a great value. That New York Times article or on-site content that goes incredibly hot on Facebook and Twitter can move the needle significantly.

It’s not uncommon for a major media mention, on-site viral event or mainstream article to drive 100K visitors in a month. In reality the traffic blast can be much higher. The visitors are often highly qualified, showing up on the site with conversion in mind. We’re projecting a relatively modest 2.8% conversion rate for the PR/social/buzz/news traffic. It could be higher.

Awesome! Increase the six month agency of record deal to $20K a month and factor in the additional conversions. There’s your 5K per month sub-$15 conversions, calculated after agency fees.

It should be no surprise that the cost of online advertising has risen to a point that it is no longer less expensive than legacy channels like television and mainstream print. The massive adoption of online since the mid-‘90s represented a shift of where consumers are reached, of epic proportions.  These days, there are very few traffic “steals” out there in paid advertising land.

For that reason, attaining affordable and sustainable target CPAs requires organic conversions from SEO and PR. These clicks are not “free,” but even when factored in with agency costs associated with driving the conversion, still dilute the CPA of pay per click only marketing significantly.  Happy hunting, marketers!

Marty Weintraub is author of Killer Facebook Ads (Wiley/Sybex 2011) and CEO of aimClear®, an online marketing agency that has managed Facebook ad campaigns generating over 10 billion impressions internationally.

Header Image © Helder Almeida – Fotolia (dot) com

I’ve recently had two transcendent experiences to further frame my now nearly 20-year career as an online marketer. First, I essentially stepped away from aimClear’s offices in Duluth and Saint Paul for 6 months to write a book about Facebook Ads. Then, literally as the book was completed, I had heart damage fixed. During cancer treatment over five years ago, my aortic valve was seriously impacted by chemo and radiation. Both the book project and open-heart surgery took me away from my decades-long daily study of SEO for weeks at a time. Both experiences turned out really well, were essential and deep, made aimClear an even better company, and provided me with magnificent perspective I would not have realized by other less extreme experiences.

Any CEO, whose company grows over five years from only him to approaching 20 souls, needs to trust the team. I knew aimClear was totally cool because now, these years later, we’ve got an office full of brilliant SEO brainy-types who practice state-of-the-art social, PR, SEO, PPC mashup strategies and tactics with vigor, wit and thought leadership. After each chunk of time away, the team briefed me so I never got personally very far out of sync with SEO changes. From daily vicissitudes in Facebook, YouTube template changes to Google’s +1, I asked for and received comprehensive studies from our team whenever anything important evolved. Still, being away from my beloved SEO study broke my heart. Well, it was broken already. The whole thing was very ironic.

Still, temporarily stepping aside made me a much better marketer. The unexpected silver lining was that constantly returning to SEO news tuned out to be a bit like perspective gained by a lonely parent who rediscovers his children after weeks away at summer vacation camp. Though I was (truly) stunned at how significantly SEO had changed each block of time away, not too much had changed at all.

In fact now that I think about it, not much has not changed at all since the days of “Fetch,” “Archie” and my hot little 14.4k Modem (V.32bis) (2400 baud) modem. Heck, not much of marketing’s essence has changed for hundreds of years. As I wrote Killer Facebook Ads, the book became much more about marketing, beyond just Facebook Ads.  After completing the book, the sabbatical from the daily SEO grind to repair my heart gave me some unpressured time to assimilate things, to think and I felt inspired to see things clearer than before. SEO is ever new and barely ever changes. Long Live SEO! This is the first installment of two, the second half of which will be published later this week.

1. SEO Is About Operating On Brand Quality, Not Just Algorithmic Discoverability
Sure: tags, shares, CMS structure and links are critical, but it takes an awesome new product to overtake an established brand. Customers don’t buy tags and shares. They purchase products that work and services that solve needs. Links and shares come from creating wonderful products, promoting the products, and finding customers who care. Just because it’s “SEO” does not mean the fundamental precepts of marketing are any different then they have ever been. SEO is a marketing channel tactic, not a strategy.

Marketers like to get angry because search engines seem to give established brands big breaks. Yep, it sure is hard for new brands to break through. Dude, it should be that way. The reason search engines make it hard for new brands is because awesome new brands are actually pretty rare. Arguably, it should be hard to break through. It’s always been this way. I heard from my mentors that in 1965, as a ma’ and pa’ appliance shop, it was pretty darned hard to take on Sears®, selling washing machines and stoves in Minneapolis neighborhoods, too. Things really have not changed very much in the Internet age.

It’s just that now entitled SEO practitioners complain, spoiled by the long lost days when, for just a minute in history, mediocre products could win by algorithmic manipulation. You know what? Get over it!

The timeless marketing axiom is that you can’t wrap a turd up in a bow and expect customers to keep buying the product. Mastering the algorithm in any organic era or publishing environment won’t fix a terrible product, even after prominence is gained. Lies are discovered and half-truths backfire. Having access to a printing press, fax machine, email or Facebook Page could never help if the product sucks. The only real wealth to be gained is the creation of valuable brands, timing, hard work and luck. After these attributes, organic prominence comes next. “Real” SEO is about understanding the imperative need to nurture the evolution of brand equity based on marketplace feedback.

Yes, SEO is about discoverability without paying the engine, but sure-footed SEO marketing starts with having awesome products that customers want. Truly great marketers will be truly great in any era and transcend the channel of the day. A brand can buy any flavor-of-the-month channel distribution expertise. It’s much harder to develop fabulous ideas and differentiating creative concepts that highlight and flatter the true value that makes a brand, new or otherwise, a perfect match for the community’s needs.

2. SEO Without Research Is Like The Tin Man, A Body With No Heart
Content without understanding what customers want is a little like peeing in the wind with your eyes shut. It’s possible to thread the needle in a vacuum, but success without research seems to be very rare. The “caterer” who discovers the keyword “gourmet food delivery Manhattan” has found a market segment that is potentially product defining. The Facebook community manager who discovers 12,630 users who are fans of a certain complimentary website have a place to go, to hang out, network and make new friends.

In the old days we called hotel room gatherings to decide on logo colors, marketing message “focus groups,” and Neilson used survey books. Now, from search to social, we have more empirical methods to understand what customers want and what words they use to express certain things or intentions. It’s a fine new age of data-driven market research. Research is the all-knowing king and content is the all-powerful queen sitting equally at his side.

3. Great SEO Content Is The Natural Result Of Authentic Value
Now that “liking,” “sharing,” rebroadcasting and other social signals have joined links, semantics and trust as primary SEO elements, there’s a lot of talk amongst marketers that recurrent and brilliant content to traffic and promote is essential. As it happens, this reality has been the same for centuries.

Brands win when they start with the principle questions:

• “What must we give our customers to demystify the process, preemptively remove barriers, and support the process of becoming and being our customers?”
• “What can we leave behind for potential customers that will clearly incent them to return and buy?”
• “Are we willing to give until it hurts?”
• “Are we as marketers willing to create content that teaches customers to fish, without giving away the fish bucket?”
• “How can we pay it forward with new customers to keep their faith and loyalty?”

These truths have nothing to do with SEO. Soft, magnanimous and benevolent touches are immortal when it comes to content.

4. Understanding Circulation Is Key
When it comes to the distribution of content, broadcast and rebroadcast, adopt early and adapt often. Distribution paradigms change daily. Present-day distribution networks, how they piggyback and dovetail, are the dominant concept to stay current with and master. Facing the brutal reality of what you do and don’t know about how content circulates amongst people is fundamental. This applies not only search engines themselves, but components of user behavior that search engines see as signals. Who saw tweets coming as important social signals to search engines? To those early adopters who invested time in building huge networks of authentic Twitter friends… go the spoils.

However, make no mistake. The distributed mashup of search and social is not new, nor is the notion of word of mouth circulation effecting brand “prominence.” SEO has always been social. From banks to beauty parlors, humans have always been recommendation “engines” propagating clues. It’s just that these days, it’s much easier for search engines to measure social and the sampling is finally enormous enough for databases of clues to be reliable.

Whether it was five women lawyers chattering between 1997 board meetings about how “cool” the new paper magazine is or 2,024,805 folks who like American Express on Facebook today, SEO has always been about word of mouth propagating brands. It should come as no surprise that as humans have flocked to social, search engines use the data to signal importance of content in SERPs. The new ecosystem of social media channels represents the human-sampled distribution channels of the day. Then or now, be it by little black book or PRWeb, keeping up to speed on distribution matters.

Looking To Part Two
The more SEO changes, the more it stays the same. Later this week, we’ll publish The Heart Of SEO: 8 Everlasting Truths Part-Two. Until then, happy optimization, and it’s great to be back!

iceteaimages – Fotolia.com

Welcome to #SMX Advanced 2011! The science of SEO. It’s a code everyone and their mother has been trying to crack since the dawn of organic rankings. Just when we think we know the elements to a success by way of SEO, something changes, wanes in significance, or gets added to the mix. The traditional chemistry between optimized titles, tags, anchor text, on-page content et. all are no longer the only players in the petri dish. The social side of the user experience is gaining some serious traction, and factors such as merchant reputation, user reviews, content quality and social signals are becoming increasingly vital to healthy SEO.

Matthew Brown, Founder, AudienceWise, Duane Forrester, Senior Program Manager SEO, Microsoft, Jeff MacGurn, Director of SEO, Covario, and Jamie Steven, VP Marketing, SEOmoz took the stage on the morning of #SMX Advanced 2011, ready, willing, and eager to tour the audience through The New Periodic Table Of SEO. Moderated by Search Engine Land’s Editor-in-Chief, Danny Sullivan, and Jeff Ferguson, CEO, Fang Digital Marketing, together we donned our proverbial lab coats and goggles, and saddled up to get scientific about SEO. Read on for the full scoop.

First up was Danny Sullivan, who began with a thoughtful look at the Periodic Table of SEO as it’s evolved over the last decade.

The Periodic Table of SEO: A Brief History

• Back in ’95-’97 – the old periodic table consisted of titles, crawlability, description, headers, URLs, numbers; KW stuffing was the big no-no.
• As things evolved, Overture & Google came along, offered up the opportunity to do keyword research. Cloaking became the big no-no.
• 2003, 2004 – Florida update rolled out – quality content becomes important. A site oughta have authority, history. No-no = link spam.
• 2007 – content freshness became more important – locality became more important. Paid links = no-no.
• By the end of 2009, everyone’s SERPs were personalized, whether or not you were logged into Google. Personal search history = very important.
• Nowadays… it’s all about social signals. Reputation, shares, authority, engagement, etc. Big no-nos = blocking (i.e.: if individuals block your content, a sign of irrelevance, etc.)

Next, it was time to explore the current state of SEO ranking factors. Kicking off the presentations was Jeff MacGurn.

Biggest takeaway from the get-go: the Periodic Table of SEO  is NOT set in stone (not even the new one). It is & will always be continuously expanding. Second biggest takeaway: Jeff is the king of incorporating Internet memes into decks.

Jeff was ready to take us through Covario’s SEO Factor Correlation Analysis – a research project that studied 800k landing pages, 56 factors, and 937 data points between Nov – Dec 2010.

Technical SEO Factors - Elements & Findings

• Page size –> Not highly correlated with ranking well
• URL character length –> Not necessarily correlated to ranking well
• Flash navigation –> Not correlated
• Session IDs –> Strong negative correlation when present
• Dynamic parameters in URLs –> Not correlated
• Proximity of page to root directory  —> Low correlation
• Page load time –> Surprisingly strong correlation

Content Factors – Elements & Findings

• Keyword emphasis –> Not well correlated
• KW in title tag –> Strong correlation, stronger on Bing & Yahoo than Google
• KW in meta description –> Not correlated
• KW in H1 & H2 tag –> Strongly correlated overall
• KW in H3 tag –> Not strongly correlated
  • People don’t really use H3 tags that much, maybe that’s why it doesn’t correlate as much as H1 & H2
• KW in image alt text –> Not correlated
• KW in URL –>Strong correlation overall

Link Ranking Factors – Elements & Findings

• Internal link count –> Very little correlation
• External link count –> Marginally better than internal
• Keyword in anchor text –> Waiting, but still slight correlation
• Link hubs –> Very strong, one of the strongest factors of all examined factors
  • Mantra: “I want to have links from everyone my competitor has links from.”

Top takeaways: In the end, y’all can have the most amazingly optimized site ever, but UNIQUE content, a unique factor, is the most what will make all the difference, i.e.:  Don’t look for the secret SEO factors of the day – the landscape changes without the fundamentals changing. You need to find other differentiating ways to rank well.

Next up, Rand Fishkin. Like Jeff, Rand was set to share the interesting search ranking factors findings from a study recently conducted by SEOmoz. There was two types of data coming at us: 1) opinion data, straight from an SEOs survey, and 2) correlation data– the way the study panned out.

Correlation Data Methodology

Data time!

In 2009, 65% of surveyed SEOs thought link factors were amazingly important.  In 2011, it’s more like 45%. Serious drop off.

What do SEOs believe will happen with Google’s use of ranking features in the future?

• Exact keyword match will decrease
• Anchor text in external links will decrease
• Prominence of ads vs. content will increase
• Usage data will increase
• Social signals at a domain level will increase
• Perceived value will increase
• Social signals at page level will increase

What the study shows:

• Exact match keyword domains are losing importance as search ranking factors
• Google is getting better at discounting the value of paid links
• Domain level link data is surprisingly similar to page level link data in correlation

Have exact match domains lost their luster?

• Yes, to a degree– exact match domains have fallen considerably in the past 10 months

Is Google evil?

• Google has said that linking externally is good, slow pages are bad, using Google services won’t give any benefit (eg: Google Analytics)
• SEOmoz’ study & data supports those statements
• Study finds by-and large, there’s not much “evil” in Google’s rankings, none that correlation research reveals

Now, onto social signals – from users of Twitter to Facebook & Google Buzz. Get ready for your mind to be blown.

• The # of FB shares is the single highest correlated metric with higher Google rankings
• After FB shares, it’s the sum of FB shares, likes, & comments-- after that, the # of linking c-blocks to pages
• Rand was amazed that FB share data was present for 61% of pages in the top 30 results

“Stuff gets shared on Facebook a crapton. That’s a technical term.” – Rand Fishkin

• Opinion data suggested that FB shares are highly predictive of link activity, but correlated data didn’t exactly echo that concept.
• Regardless, as Rand said, ”This social thing has got some legs.”
• Takeaway: Twitter’s correlation wanes, but FB features appear influential. FB deserves more SEO attention than it currently receives.

And lastly, a special treat for you – SEOmoz’s ranking factors raw data available here –> http://bit.ly/kzDt7J

Next up to the mic, Matthew Brown, set to discuss the new SEO elements: brand, social, & local.

Word of caution: just because these elements are “new to the mix,” don’t underestimate the tried and true elements:

• Links are still the engine that will drive your SEO.
• On-site optimization is the gas that fuels it.
• These things are still vital, but new things are getting added, and blended together with the entire mix of elements.

So, once again – brand, social, & local. Maybe they’ll help you rank better, maybe not. Regardless, they’re shaping the SERPs, and as such, worth paying mind to.

Brand is a compound of link quality, link text, social shares, reputation, authority, history, country, locality, etc.

Fun exercise:

• Type in “microwave” in Google… not even “buy microwave,” just “microwave,” and basically all your SERPs are relating to transactional links.
• Ranked #6 on the SERP is Panasonic’s product page for microwaves. It’s hideous. Horrible SEO.
• Why does it rank? Panasonic is popular brand, has authority, trusted.

How do engines find brand signals?

• Searches for brand or branded KWs in toolbar or address bar
• Brands are going to have a lot of exact and partial match anchor text for their names and variations
• Building social signals is a great way to build brand signals. How to do this?
  • Establish / enhance your Facebook presence, for example.

BUT… how to do build brand and social signals on MY site? Facebook marketing campaigns are great, but how do you bring that back to your own site? You deserve the equity!

Check out ThinkGeek.com as a noteworthy example. They’re bringing sexy back social equity back by leveraging the Open Graph, i.e.: object based social signals, i.e.: they have the Like button directly on their page. All those likes their content gets STAY on the page, helping search engines recognize social signals on their OWN(ed) site.

• Remember, Bing & Facebook are BFFs. Ergo, use the Open Graph!

Also: identify your site’s social authority hubs… which social networks work for the types of content you share / site you own?

• Are there lots more of LinkedIn shares vs. FB shares vs. tweets for your content? Make strategic decisions based on this data.
• How do you want to encourage people to utilize social networks? Take note of WHERE they are – invest your time there.

Tip: Schema.org – check out this baby, stay current on semantic goodies.

Last but not least – localization. Matt asks, is localization the online brand killer? It does seem to dominate the SERPs… sometimes even pushing Wikipedia down wayyyy below the fold (something we all secretly wish for, right? ehh…)

Tips:

• Google Suggest is one way to understand if your keywords are becoming increasingly localized
• Mergewords lets you mash up cities (any location, really) with KWs – run those through Google to glean inventory / increase / decrease, etc.

First mover status: Take chances, make guesses, the ones that pay off will be worth it! Example, Google +1 doesn’t seem like much now, but you don’t want to WAIT for it to become super important – start now!

And that’s all she wrote! (Or he… this was a rather male-tastic panel.) Stay tuned for more blog coverage coming atcha from #SMX Advanced, and live-coverage via @beebow.

photo credit: Extra Ketchup

Bruce Clay was SEO way before SEO was cool. His name has become synonymous with corporate SEO training. Having created one of the first iconic SEO agency brands, nestled in the lovely foothills of Simi Valley, CA, his book, SEO For Dummies is a staple.  He is a mainstay in the international online marketing conference circuit and an early advocate for the “Siloing” concept of channeling authority and energy throughout content management systems by linking.  Bruce Clay Inc. has made the INC5000 multiple times and with good reason. With a couple of advanced degrees from Pepperdine, dude  is extremely buttoned down. Bruce Clay, the agency, has a presence Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, London, Tokyo, and soon in China and Brazil.

Next week at SMX Advanced Seattle, he’ll be speaking on the Mega Session: SEO Vet’s Take All Comers, day two (June 8th) at 3PM PT.  Also, the ever ubiqutious Bruce Clay SEO Training, a full day affair Bruce teaches himself takes place as customary after ‘Advanced June 9th. It’s not too late to enroll.

On a personal note, Bruce is a real friend to aimClear, having unselfishly shared a lot of proprietary insight as to what it takes to run full day training sessions, and truly empowering us to launch the  aimClear® Facebook Marketing Intensive full day workshop. He’s a mentor and a friend, and I’m pleased to share this interview after sitting down with him in his Simi offices last month.

| aimClear: Bruce, you’ve been in the SEO teaching space since the beginning. What SEO values are timeless, and never change regardless of technological or algorithmic industry changes?

Bruce Clay: While it has always been true, it seems more important now to remember that you cannot beat quality. Quality content, quality tools, quality training, quality staff and quality services. We have spent a lot of time to teach the core principles as well as keeping pace with the growth and evolution of the industry. Very few people understand the investment in time and research to build a competent training course, especially in a space where things change each week. Timeless values include on-page factors that are and have always been something students have control over and that generally does not involving begging, and where changes can quickly produce results. Links are a big part of SEO provided you attract them and do not fall prey to the easy link schemes (like buying links). And we are seeing local, social and soon mobile influence results. I do not believe that anything in SEO is timeless, but quality in all you do counts.

| aimClear: What are the qualities you look for in an SEO professional? What backgrounds do you seek out and why? What are your favorite interview questions to shed light on a job candidate’s aptitude?

BC: It is difficult to find a “one size fits all” employee. We like to hire people with a little experience and train them, or people with solid broad experience – and still train them. Our clients are big and small, and every client is different, so every project is different, and every employee needs to adapt. Knowing not to spam, having a solid experience across all internet marketing optimization  skill segments, amazing research and analytical abilities, the ability to write clearly, and work as part of a team are our major qualities. I have a list of questions, but “what do you want to be when you grow up” seems to always be asked. Funny that nobody wants to grow up.

| aimClear: Regarding SEO, what are your predictions as to what will gain significant influence and importance over the next 12 months?

BC: In our first Newsletter of each year I publish my list of expectations for the year, and I have a pretty good history of being right. I think the emphasis on local will dominate for about another year, then we will see Google emphasize dominance in news areas.

| aimClear: Bruce Clay, the agency, has weathered every generation of professional SEO evolution, and thrived. What secrets can you point to as key for the longevity and success?

BC: Moderated growth, commitment to quality, only accepting win-win projects, focus on research and knowledge transfer, and offering tools, training and services. We have a solid brand, and with it comes trust and that allows us to have our changes implemented… obviously key to gaining results. We require every SEO client to attend our training class or we refuse the project, resulting in a better educated and trusting client, and with this a greater success and satisfied client.

| aimClear: What’s your speaking schedule at SMX Advanced, 2011? What will you be covering and why are the topics crucial?

BC: I am speaking at the Ask the SEO session [sic, Mega Session: SEO Vets Take All Comers], as well as conducting the full-day partnered  SEO Training class. As time permits I generally meet with clients throughout the week. I think that as important as my speaking and training is that this is a sold-out event. We are sending Susan and Jessica along with Lisa Buyer to live blog sessions on the Bruce Clay Blog to make sure that everyone can pick up on the gems during this week. So in essence BCI will be presenting knowledge at several levels during the conference. We have been offering industry research and knowledge to attendees and readers alike for years, and we look forward to continuing this tradition at SMX Advanced.

| aimClear: Thanks for your time today, Bruce. See you in Seattle!

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