Some say that “black hat” search marketers will do anything to gain a top ranking and others argue that even “white hat” marketers who embrace ethical search engine optimization practices are ultimately trying to game the search ranking system. Are white hats being naive? Are black hats failing to see the long-term picture? This session will include an exploration of the latest black and white issues, with lots of time for dialog and discussion.
Moderator:
Speakers:
- Greg Boser, President, WebGuerrilla LLC
- Todd Friesen, Director of Search Engine Optimization, Range Online
- Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
- David Naylor, SEO, Bronco
- Jill Whalen, CEO, High Rankings
Notes:
- No Presentations will be given. It is a packed session here at SES. Quite a rowdy crowd. The discussion will be town hall format.
- Definition of Black Hat -
- Bruce Clay: The search engines define what it is. Most white hats play in the middle; gray hats play on the edge; black hats focus out of bounds
- Jill Whalen: Attempting to deceive the search engines
- Definition of White Hat -
- Todd Friesen: He agrees with Jill’s assessment but brings up the verticals differences
- Greg Boser: White hat is defined as SEO with no game
- Dave Naylor: Black Hat is like driving a Porsche in competitive industries
- Is there risk in both white and black hat techniques?
- Jill says work hard to make a great website
- Bruce says if you are working on your site and Matt Cutts comes up behind you, you close your notebook- you are at risk. White Hats color within the lines. Since search engines don’t publish the rules some white hat techniques can appear as black hat even though legitimate.
- Todd agrees.
- Greg indicates that most of the black hat techniques are server on his personal site not clients.
- Jill brings up the idea of incompetent SEOs and the fact that they are the worse group. The crowd agrees!
- The topic has turned to buying links and what that really means to the search engines. Dave says what does the footprint of a specific tactic look like. Black hats are always testing the limits of link building.
- Bruce agrees if we spend time working on a project we need to know what the rules are. The question becomes do we take the time or do we buy links.
- Jill chimes in on the rules…don’t read Google’s guidelines she says it’s common sense. We are all adults. Todd disagrees…this is not common sense.
Questions now coming from the floor.
- Will links in RSS feeds help?
The panel defines it as really simple spam (LOL) This could be a dangerous technique.
- Using widgets effectively could be helpful.
- The owner of SEOChamp.com chimes in about how black hat techniques are coming from overseas. He really is passionate about how there are 70 parts to the Google algorithm. Matt chimes in at over 200.
- The challenges between a 1 month vs long term plan. Ticket brokers buy links and it is a tough space.
- Greg says look at the competitive research and then explain what can be dome and what is the risk tolerance.
- Affiliate marketing does get a bad rap sometimes. Todd is a big fan of making money. Certain verticals have a hard time following the rules to compete.
- Bruce says you should take time to build credibility over time and that an aggressive link building techniques can be risky.
- The BMW brand who was penalized for 72 hours shows that the bigger the brand the easier it is to ask for forgiveness. The interesting fact was they got tons of blog links fro the PR. The BMW SEO work was amateur at best.
- Now Matt Cutts has asked for the mic: His disclaimer is when we remove sites, they are removed based on the facts not the name. Matt indicates that there is a large subsection of a major newspaper that is currently banned and has been banned for some time. Google does not talk about what sites big or small that they take out. Matt says don’t take the risk.
- If you are banned you can ask for re-inclusion. Greg says look at the entire space when you choose to ban sites.
Tom Dressler and Eric Dudley with Matt Cutts from Google
Eric Dudley and Tom Dressler spend time with Google Engineer Matt Cutts at SES San Jose.
Shawn and the panel discuss SEO strategies with the SES audience.
We have the opportunity to learn the seven proven ways to get your website on page one organically and how to dramatically increase your conversion once you get there. We are listening to Internet marketing guru Shawn Moore as he explains the secrets that he has discovered over his 11 years in the industry. Does your website generate comments like this: “Since we re-wrote our website in 2006, our sales have continued to grow at an alarming rate. Our lead count was up by 137% on the same period last year. Our contract signings grew by 608% and our conversion rate increased 40% on the same period last year.”
Speaker:
Fact - What is Google’s business model?
They are in the business of attracting eyeballs. The revenue model is to provide paid search advertising. Emphasis is placed on relevance. Google generates $40M a day from advertisers. Page 1 is priceless as 91% of AOL users use page 1 for example. Position 1 is key as well with 50% of all visitors clicking on position 1 before the move on.
SEO Strategies - Search Engine Strategies listed in order of importance.
- Content is King - Appropriate content is important to support the keywords selected. Images can also be used as well as video.
- Navigation and Architecture - Use programming that Google can index. Be careful of JavaScript drop downs that can’t be followed by the search engine.
- Blogs - Blogs are other forms of content server in a slightly different manner. All of these items are strategies and more strategies are needed as competition is more sophisticated.
- Quality and Keyword Rick Inbound Links - reference Google’s guidelines. Use Yahoo SiteExplorer as a quick reference.
- Database installations - Be careful that the search engine can see this information
- Electronic Press Releases - Many sections that are submitted to Google News that have great content and links.
- Domain Name Strategy - Can be an area not currently used. Select a keyword rich domain name if possible. Register and host for multiple years indicates relevance. Take a look at direct domain searches to direct traffic to you and your site.
How do we leverage the strategies above related to an Internet marketing budget plan? Simple; take a percentage of budget for each. Implement as many strategies as possible using your budget. Look at your major competitors first to understand which strategies they have deployed.
What is and Ideal SEO team?
- Talented Creative Designer
- Talented Web Developer
- Talented Content Writer
- Talented Marketing Manager
- Wiz Technical Manager
- Expert SEO
- Expert Strategists
The more fluid the team the more significant the results!
Open Q&A
- Keep your links to 100 or less per page
- Focus your link building on keyword anchor text that you are looking to dominate
- Stay away from duplicate content
The final day of the Search Engine Strategies Conference begins with a morning keynote by Dan Heath, author of “Made to Stick”. I’m then off to my first session of the day, which is going to be Site Clinic, an interactive session examining volunteers’ websites live to provide help to gain more traffic from search engines.
The second session of the day will be Creating a Cohesive Search Strategy Across Multiple Business Units. David Roth, Director of Search Marketing for Yahoo! will explain how Yahoo defines, measures and manages online marketing success across a variety of business models. Eduardo Llach, Chief Marketing Officer and Co-founder of SearchRev will present search strategies and campaign optimization techniques that brands use to meet their online marketing objectives.
Session number three is Post-Click Marketing: Converting Search Engine Traffic. This session will cover: keyword research, organization and structure of a site to facilitate click-paths, creating content that pleases each segment of a visitor, testing content to determine what works and what doesn’t, and making sure you’re showing each segment of users the content that is most likely to entice them to convert.
The final session of the conference I will be attending is Search Advertising Tools. This will focus on both free and paid offerings for search advertising tools. A panel of experts including the co-founder of Clickable and and the VP/Director of Search of SMG Search will be there to to teach us about the latest tools.
Finally, I will be heading home on the red-eye back to Charlotte. Keep an eye out for my live blogs from SES as well as some thoughts from when I return. I look forward to hearing your feedback..
Day 2 of the Search Engine Strategies Conference begins with a Keynote from Satya Nadella, Senior VP, Portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft. The Expo Hall Grand Opening follows, then a full day of sessions falling under 5 different tracks:
- Just the Basics
- Measuring Success
- Trends in B2B Search
- Advanced Advertising
- ClickZ Track
The first session I plan on attending falls under Advanced Advertising and is entitled Landing Page Testing and Tuning. The focus is on testing and tuning landing pages to increase conversions.
Next on my agenda is the Keynote Panel on Technical & Information Giants. Speakers include Matt Cutts with Google, Danny Sullivan with SearchEngineLand and Tim Westergren founder of Pandora. It should be a really insightful discussion.
On to the next session: it’s a toss up between two sessions, one sponsored by Microsoft -Diagnose SEO Issues Using Live Search Webmaster Tools and the other by Omniture - 5 Things No One Will Tell You About SEM. Microsoft’s session centers around using SEO to increase your website’s discoverability and Omniture’s session includes an SEM panel discussing the new SEM tactic. Any suggestions as to which session you feel would better serve me are welcome!
I’m also having trouble deciding which session to end the day with. The three I’m deciding between are: Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers, Advanced B2B Marketing, and Re Search Online, Purchase Offline. All three sessions are panel discussions. Any ideas about which one would be the best for me to attend?
Finally, I’m ending day 2 with a cocktail reception and another party! The Google Dance is being held at the Google Campus. Between the IM Charity Party the night before and The Google Dance party, I think I’m going to be one tired guy by the end of this week.
Stay tuned to find out what’s in store for day 3…