Speakers: Dennis Goedegebuure – Geeknet

Jon Colman – REI

Summary:

Jon and Dennis will discuss optimizing your site assets and server infrastructure at the enterprise level, and discuss how to build a fast-loading, “sticky” site to maintain your rankings in the new era of Google search.

Dennis Geodegebuure- “SEO Theory to Practice”

+Look at how your website is structured and make sure to “theme” it. Make sure the content is important for specific users within the theme of your website.

+Organize all of your content in a pyramid. Build a hub for your main page.

+If you have a target keyword, you’ll need to determine which page is going to be the page ranking for that keyword.

SEO Theories:

-Click distribution of keywords highly focused on the first page. (On average any page two post on your website will not get a lot of traffic unless you push content to the front page)

-Strong sites can rank baed on internal links

-Internal linking system (SaaS)

Steps:

1. Which keywords and pages to target (revenue estimate)

2. Pick a champion page, where you should focus (chose one that you want to focus on getting the rank higher by increasing internal and external links)

3. Determine what you need with your backings to get a keyword on your focus page.

4. Execution: Target the links, flow the juice to the champion.

+TFNS: Functional Technology and Architecture: Service system that shows real time server to server pull. Will give back information you need based on page type and keywords used. Keyword to keyword mapping table for a landing page that is used to render the information back.

-Example: External and internal data pulls

+Understand where you are going to be based on the efforts you put in and the return you get out of it. The keyword is important. Something largely searched (ex: ipod) you have to know and expect that you will never rank 1 or 2.

Quote: “keywords are people too”

+Analytics: How valuable is position?

-Determine value at category, keyword basket, and keyword levels

-Keyword segmentation using: Hot keywords and Tail keywords, male vs female, younger vs older

-Ask: Can you rank on a keyword based on your competitors and based on your brand category?

-Search analytics for NS link optimization

Lessons Learned:

-Internal linking can be very powerful on large sites

-Scale and latency is an issue for large sites

-Relevancy of source vs target keyword is key

-Keywords are people too

-Internal politics count

-Test, fail, pass, test again

Jon Colman- “SEO and Site Performance” (All related to Battlestar Galactica)

“Sometimes You Gotta Roll a Hand Six”

-Google uses speed as an organic search ranking factor for the top 1% of competitive queries. (Admiral Cain would have a problem with this. Speed isn’t tactic for SEO its a strategy for customers)

-Customers expect you website to load in 2 seconds or less

-40% of customers with abandon any site that taekes longer than 3 seconds to load

-The average fortune 500 company website takes 7 seconds to load (and this is why they fail)

-For every one second of load time, conversion drops by 7%

-For every one second of load time, user satisfaction drops by 16%

-33% of users surveyed expect a mobile site to load just as fast or faster than a desktop computer

-A faster website reduces the costs of infrastrucure and releases by 50% or more.

-80% of page load time is dpendant by front end engineering issues (This can be up to 97% for mobile)

“When website are fast, you feel good. What it comes down to is that you feel in control; that feeling translates to happiness” – Matt Mullenweg

How do Optimize:

-Study and learn from the best (google and yahoo make great documents to read and study on site performance)

-Tools: Free tools can help you get started right away. (Google Webmaster Tools, firebug, kingdom, etc) Do not use every tool but find one that works for you.

“When the cylons attacked the colonies it was a quick win. They defeated all ten colonies in a matter of hours”

You can do this!

1. Use gzip HTTP compression- decrease page load time by compressing the request, minimizing the amount of data transfered

2. Use a far-future Expires Header- Helps with the re-loads of static page objects and components by caching them.

3. Use the asynchronous GA code- This has been availble for a long time. Put it in place of old Google code.

4. Don’t dupe JS, remove unused CSS- Creates unnecessary HTTP request and JS execution.

5. <link> your CSS, avoid @import- Allows for parallel downloading and avoids addition delays

6. Specify a character set- Helps the browser begin parsing HTML and executing scripts immediately.

7. Use a small, cached favicon.ico

8. Avoid empty images <img>- Forces another HHTP request, which slows down your page load.

9. Compress your images, and use dimensions- Will reduce page load time by minimizing data sent from the server to the browser.

10. Avoid redirects- Cuts down on wait time for users by avoiding an enture request-response cycle and the latency that goes with it.

More information (intermediate)

-CSS sprites reduce HTTP requests- improves site performance, combining common image into “sprites” reduces total page file size.

+Conditions for this: images loaded together, similar colors, similar size

-StackExchange moves to a CDN, crowd-sources performance tests.

-Etsy.com uses Bit Torrent to replicate its search index across servers.

SEO Final Takeaways:

-The site performance business case isn’t just about SEO, but also customer UX (user experience)

-Budget for speed as your would for any other feature or site enhancement

-Don’t do everything at once, start small with quick wins

-Set SLAs for all new content and features

-Measure, celebrate and repeat

The post Advanced On-Site SEO appeared first on SEMpdx.

Speakers:

Ian Lurie – Portent Interactive

John Shehata – ABC News

Summary:

Learn what social networks are best for you, how to incorporate them into your overall marketing strategy, and how to get the best results for your efforts.

Ian Lurie: “The Internets Way of Driving Us Crazy”

+Take strangers and make them into an audience, which turns into a community, who then turn into customers. Problem: Everyone knows this strategy.

-700 Facebook posts per second

+How to catch people’s attention:

-Do something extreme and hope someone in watching.

-Preferred strategy: Do something that matters, that impacts your audience.

+You need a plan: What to do when you don’t have time to juggle all of the social media platforms.

+Look at the Who, Where, When, What

WHO

+Search on Follwerwonk to find people who matter in your same interests. If you find someone on Twitter, you can look into where else they are talking (blogs)

+Social Mention- find what people are looking for, and the words they are using to find it

+Facebook search tool is not very helpful. A hint? Do the Facebook site search.

Ex) Keyword site:www.facebook.com

+Subscribe to different people’s blogs to build a place to go and skim content rapidly

+Reeder: a tool to connect to google and pull in subscriptions right to you. It also allows you to “share” information you like.

WHERE

+Hootsuite: schedule and stream tweets, Linkedin posts and more.

+Timely: Que up and schedule tweets for the best time of the day

+Bufferapp: The same thing as Timely but has a mobile app.

+Reddit/ Stumbleupon: Niche sites for social network categories that you can become apart of.

WHEN:

+You will figure out the best times to post depending on when your followers are active. Take a leap to post something when it is quiet (ex: Saturday morning) so that people will be likely to read in depth what you are posting

+10 Minutes in the morning, 5 minute spurts during the day, and 10 minutes in the evening

+Klout: What your reach is, what you are influential about, and when are you getting the best responses. You can look at spikes to see what you did or said that caused an increase or decrease.

WHAT

+Respond first, curate second, and rant last.

+Don’t blow someone off on Twitter even though it might be tempting. Everything you say matters. People who see that brands respond to a customer, makes them value that brand more.

+Say thank you when people give you praise. Just say Thanks!

+Tools: Readitlater -Look at content that you want to touch on later and list it on your post. You can also add this to Timely to have it automatically sent out on Twitter at the best possible time.

+Don’t Rant: Sometimes is it O.K., but make it the last thing you do after positive posts, because it is the least productive thing you can do for the sake of your campaign.

Most Important: Ask yourself: Does it matter?

END OF THE DAY

Bit.ly: Link shortening, making it easier for other poeple to share. You can also check out results of the post (followers, clicks, shares)

+Facebook Insights: For company pages, that will show you what content has performed the best.

+Google Plus: Ripples- Letting you see over time how your content is spread.

Last Minute Points:

-Be very organized. Group everything.

-Look back to see what is working. Measure everything.

-Use niche and media sharing slides (SlideShare)

John Shehata  “Facebook Algorithms, Engagement, and Tactics”

+Facebook Newsfeed: What you see are your top stories. “Edge Rank” and “Graph Rank” are algorithms that track every single action someone takes on Facebook.

+Edge Rank: Determines where and whether your stories appear in your fans’ newsfeed. Affinity, Weight, Time Decay

-Affinity: relationship between the user and the brand.

-Weight: Every action on Facebook has different weight. Photos> links> status. Comments have four times the weight of likes.

-Time Decay: Newer items are always better than old, and the time you post on Facebook is important.

FACT: The average page’s posts are seen by less than 10% of its fans.

+Metrics: How many people like the page, how many people are talking about it, and how many people like, comment, and share certain posts.

+Page Admin: Insights- You should constantly be looking at this data to compare content to results.

+What matters is engagement rate more than the number of fans and comments and posts. You must engage back.

Why Do People Share:

+Emotions: something evokes a type of emotions that makes you want to respond or share to others.

(Ex: heartfelt stories are four times more likely to be shared than a regular day to day news story)

How to Boost Facebook Engagement?

1. Post simple, concise, and short updates. (No more than 80 characters)

2. Ask (open ended) questions. (Do this without stating opinions)

3. Share stories with thumbnail photos. (Photos draw 50% more likes than non-photo posts)

4. Post photos (Include a small link to bring the user back to the story in the information)

5. Post videos

6. Tweak Headlines (Make the automatic headlines to something more interesting, descriptive)

7. Use clear “Call To Action” (Click Like, Share with, Comment on)

8. Exclusive content and deals (Offer users coupons or discounts for being a fan)

9.  Post games and trivia (Don’t do it too much– maybe once a week)

10. Contests (Make sure that your prize is relevant to your brand)

11. Interact with your fans (Respond to complaints, praise, questions)

12. Incorporate current events, popular/trending/breaking news in your updates

13. Post follow ups (Bad news generates comments, good news generates likes)

14. Talk about Facebook on Facebook

15. Address Controversial Topics (High Risk… Beware!)

16. Highlight top fans and reward engagement (Ego boost, say thank you, and give reward)

Questions:

-What kind of photos should you post? It depends on your audience, but it should always be related to the brand.

-How to help your clients on social media strategy? Train time the best you can, but it is not an easy concept unless you know how to manage your day.

-Do you use the voice of your business or the voice of yourself? Speak in your voice, but connect other people in your company to share themselves. If it is only you, be yourself and be transparent.

The post Social Track: Social Media Strategy appeared first on SEMpdx.