Get More Web Traffic

Jonathan Hochman

September 16, 2009

Boston Marriott Newton

Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center

Nathan Buggia, Microsoft

Vanessa Fox, Ex-Google

Which to use?

• Google is the leader.

• As free services, neither is guaranteed to be complete.

• Use both to ensure maximum insight.

Bans and penalties

• Sites that violate Webmaster Guidelines, may be banned or penalized.

• Bans might be reported, but often not.

• GWT provides a reinclusion request form.

• Cleanup before requesting forgiveness. Document cleanup steps and disclose who did what.

Example of a penalty notice

Bing Webmaster Center

Indexing problems

Search Impact of Malware

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2009/08/malware-statistics-update.html

NY Times Breached

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/technology/internet/15adco.html

Broken Links

Defective or Missing Tag Sets

Rhea Explains Duplicate Content

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-pagerank-play-doh/5504/

Duplicate Content

• Duped pages often have the same titles and meta descriptions.

Eliminating Duplicate Content

• Standardize domains using 301 redirects.

• Set your www or non-www domain preference in GWT.

• Instead of 301 redirects, the <link rel=“canonical” href=“…” /> tag can help.

http://www.hochmanconsultants.com/articles/redirect-multiple-domains.shtml

Eliminating Duplicate Content

Sitemap.XML Benefits

• Won’t magically improve rankings if the site is already crawlable.

• Making a sitemap.xml file may reveal:– Broken links– Orphan pages– Duplicate content– Pages that should be excluded

• Get specific feedback/stats

GSiteCrawler Sitemap Generator

http://gsitecrawler.com

Xenu Link Sleuth

SEO Tools – Firefox Add Ons

1. Toolbar PageRank

2. Alexa rating

3. Highlight nofollow links

NoScript for Firefox

• Protects your computer from bad software

• View web pages as a search engine does

More FireFox Add Ons

Disable CSS, JS

Disable meta redirects

Turn off images

Many more goodiesDiagnose redirect issues

PPC and Promotion

• Everybody loves SEO for free traffic.

• Is time and effort free?

• SEO can be a great long term strategy

• Natural search rankings are a bonanza, not an obligation.

→ For fastest results, pay for traffic.

Do paid listings influence naturals search results?

• No: good search engines don’t care if you join their paid program

• Sometimes: Yahoo! Search Submit sells their non-sponsored results.

• Yes: anything that increases exposure of a site may help generate new links.

Every snowman begins with a snowball.

Three Most Important PPC Ideas

• 80% of market participants don’t track cost per sale, and don’t know the value of a customer. Get those numbers, then adjust your bids to make risk free money.

• More than ad creative and offer, who sees your ad determines success or failure. If PPC isn’t working, you’re probably targeting the wrong people. Be specific.

• Advertise on your branded terms.

When does 1 + 1 = 3?

Being listed in both the natural and sponsored results improves Click Through Rate for both types of listings.

Traffic is influenced not only by rankings, but also by the number and quality of impressions.

SiteLinks

Another type of Sitelinks

How to Get Sitelinks

• Easily crawled, structured navigation

• High natural search traffic for multiple pages on the site

• Trust factors– Inbound links from trusted sites– Outbound links only point to trusted sites– Established site (age)

http://www.hochmanconsultants.com/articles/sitelinks.shtml

Email Marketing

• I hate newsletter “spam”.

• But, I am not the typical web user.

• If somebody buys from you, keep in touch.

It can be profitable to “buy” the customer. When cost of the first sale exceeds margin, email marketing is essential.

Email Marketing Tactics

• Outlook is a bad way to email a list.

• Use an email marketing service to:– Facilitate legal compliance– Track results– Provide a convenient unsubscribe feature

• Repurpose content to make newsletters

• Give value to receive value

Spot the email

Payment ProcessingUse the same Google Checkout login as

AdWords to get an eye-catching logo:

Local Search

• Address on website, even in footer of every page

• Claim your listings

• SEMNE will discuss Local Search in November