A Primer on Search Engine Optmization
The first session I’m attending is the A Primer on Search Engine Optmization session, which I would have been on time for had I not left my Macbook’s power cord up in my room. Like I said earlier in the blog, my room is waaaaaay at the end of the hallway on the 13th floor, so you can imagine how happy I was when I realized I needed to go back and get it.
Joshua Ziering from FullSpeedSEO.com is speaking. His Twitter is @JoshuaZiering
Here are a few key ideas that I’ve picked up so far:
- Use the ~ character when searching on Google, and Google will bold the terms on the resulting pages.
- Make sure your page loads fast - Google gives you points for that.
- It’s better to be tagging the homecoming queen. You need that explained? Okay, basically it’s better to be linked to a high profile person or website than to be known by dozens of people that nobody knows or sites that nobody reads. Backlinks from authoritative sites are key to your growth.
- Page rank doesn’t matter. (I’m so happy people are starting to come around on this… I’ve been saying it for years, but I haven’t been tagging the homecoming queen, so nobody heard me!)
- How do you get good backlinks?
- Write guest posts
- Social bookmarking - Digg, Stumble
- Profiles on YouTube, Slashdot and others
- Twitter, Facebook
- Avoid URL shorteners whenever possible - they don’t help you!
- According to Matt Cutts of Google, link bait isn’t necessarily bad. “…it doesn’t have to have negative connotations…”
- There is no subject you can’t write link bait for.
- Blog comments are still good for link building, if done right. Be relevant, be white-hat.
- Look for sites that use CommentLuv, a “do-follow” plugin for Wordpress. Don’t turn down no-follow links, but try to get good ‘do-follow’ links whenever possible.
- Use Yahoo to gather information on sites in your niche. site:TheirSite.com and you can export the results to a spreadsheet.
- Check out Site Snatcher and Link Excavator.
- Check out Rank Checker and SEO Information from SEOBook.
- Coda Development Software for Mac users comes recommended for building and managing sites.
The full session video will be released to (I have to double check this) registered members after Summit concludes.
