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    4. What's your best hidden SEO secret?

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    What's your best hidden SEO secret?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • petrakraft
      petrakraft @HiveDigitalInc last edited by

      Lol - that's a different approach ...

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
      • HiveDigitalInc
        HiveDigitalInc last edited by

        1. Create a bunch of blackhat, auto-genned spammy sites in your space...

        2. See what they automatically get long-tail traffic on...

        3. Write content on your site targeting those keywords...

        petrakraft PabloGV TheGrid cbielich 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote -2
        • seospain
          seospain last edited by

          Not so much a secret but for me it's build a quality site for users and not for engines, don't rely solely on Google and other organic search traffic (use multiple channels like newsletters, blog commenting, link bailt, blogging, social etc) so that if you organic rankings are hit, it doesn't take out your business completely. Work hard on converting the visitors you do get by making good use of Google Analytics, usability testing and conversion optimisation. Ok, so that was more than one but I couldn't help myself. 😉

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • petrakraft
            petrakraft @kaashifk last edited by

            Hi Kaashif - thank you for sharing your "secret".

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
            • kaashifk
              kaashifk last edited by

              My best SEO strategi is to get moving and to stop consuimng infomation..in the begining i used to buy way to much SEO stuff, an dofun dmyself suffering from infomation overload.. Till one day i just formulated a plan and got cracking..

              My plan..

              effective keyword research

              identifty top 3 competitors and opensite explore them

              cheack,check and double chek ALL your onsite meta data

              recheck all onsite meta data

              proceed to offsite

              first and foremost submit to directory sites

              then spend and hr each day to build backlinks, aiming to build 1 extra link than the day before BUT also take a gap day on a random day each week inbetween, use this day for admin tasks like checking analytics,rank checks,check if any of your links have been indexed etc but above all, use this day to go back to your 1st day of the weeks links you tried to build and check up on them etc etc

              Also try and get a guest blog op for yourself on a blog in your niche.

              Finally,stay far away from anything remotely dodgy!

              hopes this helps and good luck!

              petrakraft IPIM FergusonSEO Budskab 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 24
              • seoforward
                seoforward last edited by

                SEOMOZ and the web in general teaches me so much everyday, and I know it's basic but to write for the audience not the engines

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Dan-Petrovic
                  Dan-Petrovic @Kozmo last edited by

                  Agreed, community is something that can not only educate but get you going and inspire to do more and better. It does get a bit lonely if you are hiding under a rock for too long.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • LuminConsutling
                    LuminConsutling @MarkHodson last edited by

                    As I read through these down the page, this is by far the best answer yet IMHO

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -2
                    • MozMan2
                      MozMan2 @tclendaniel last edited by

                      I wish I knew what you were talking about, it sounds interesting but not very clearly explained.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ChrisMacNaughton
                        ChrisMacNaughton last edited by

                        I suppose that my biggest thing is good analytics and figuring out what your specific KPIs will be for a specific site.  After figuring out the best KPIs, work on those, don't get distracted by keyword rankigns, those can change all to easily when Google decides to chagne the ranking algorithm.

                        Focus on why we want rankings: to get converting traffic.  If you're spending hours or days working on something, it had better effect the bottom line for the company or it isn't woth doing.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • Kozmo
                          Kozmo @Dan-Petrovic last edited by

                          Love your reply!  And the "Zone".  It is a great place to be.  I guess you can't be in the "Zone" everyday.  Then it really would not be the "Zone".   Just another day 😉

                          I think being a part of this community and others is really the best SEO secret.  Learning from others, making mistakes and networking is the key and the secret to success.

                          Dan-Petrovic 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • dennis.globalsign
                            dennis.globalsign Subscriber @Dan-Petrovic last edited by

                            I find the secret to getting there is to find the smallest possible task related to the work need to do. Start small and build up momentum - the key to having one of those magic hours. 🙂

                            Budskab 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                            • LauraThomas
                              LauraThomas @Ken_Jansen last edited by

                              very true! and I'll add...keep focused.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Blargh123
                                Blargh123 @DanDeceuster last edited by

                                Your correct our jobs would not exist if SEO was easy and automated!  the "easy" button only helps you defeat those who dont know how to press it!  once your past that your normallty competeing head to head with other skilled SEO's for the top spots often one link can be indexed and change me from 1 to spot 3, because the link profiles have grown so similarly between competitors.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • Blargh123
                                  Blargh123 @tclendaniel last edited by

                                  Niche SEO marketing is how alot of us got into the field! building portfolios much like the one you discuss 🙂  What kind of conversions are you seeing from your portfolio?

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • Blargh123
                                    Blargh123 @caseyhen last edited by

                                    SEO jobs in general put you into positions with business people, and profesionals from all varieties.  Great networking profession! one of my favorite job perks!

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • AlanMosley
                                      AlanMosley last edited by

                                      The Microsoft IIS SEO Tool Kit
                                      I am yet to find a site that does not have a pile of errors, I get all my sites free from violations, this gives me a head start (how big that head start is is debatable)

                                      If your technical side is not perfect all your SEM is discounted. Its like fishing with holes in your net.

                                      raxhuq 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                      • AlanMosley
                                        AlanMosley @Dan-Petrovic last edited by

                                        good to hear that i am not alone.
                                        I can avoid a job day after day after day. but once im on my way, the sun comming up tells me its time to quit

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                                        • Thos003
                                          Thos003 last edited by

                                          In order:

                                          Secret #1 - Work + Time = Awesome SEO

                                          Secret #2 - Core Group of SEOs to work and share with.

                                          Secret #3 - Keeping secrets secret.  ... Sorry had to add that one. 😉

                                          Actually I should probably add that I don't believe there are many true secrets to SEO. Time and work will get you the best long term results.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • Wayne76
                                            Wayne76 last edited by

                                            One of the best SEO secrets I've learned (which took a while) is how to implement what works best and leave the rest alone. Trying to read and stay abreast of everything regarding SEO is a futile venture--it's as much art as it is science, and few 'secrets' exist.

                                            There are large components of SEO that are open to grand interpretation and it's often hard to separate good information from mis-information from out-dated information from just plain flase information. (If you ever get the opportunity to attend PubCon or an SES conference and listen to the bevy of conversation and opinion happening all about you, the quickl realization is that there are few fast and hard rules.)

                                            There are several camps that will advise you a bit differently in all aspects of SEO: some will claim that their methods are proven, others will be more humble and offer a "best-practices" approach sans the 'guarantee'. I often believe I'm only as good at SEO as the success I had yesterday.

                                            Try to find what works for you inside your vertical and then cherry-pick tips from the rest of the SEO community as you see fit. Translation: there is no magic bullet! 🙂

                                            Here's to future success!

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
                                            • AtoZion
                                              AtoZion last edited by

                                              A marker board schedule.

                                              I am not allowed to do anything (self imposed) that is not on my marker board for a specific time period. That makes me focus and get done what I need done.

                                              Personal Facebook time takes a backburner when I need to do SEO.

                                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                              • danbocain
                                                danbocain @eric_since1910.com last edited by

                                                This is another great one. I've built plenty of professional relationships with previous clients (we refer business back and forth), as well as with a few graphic designers who work mostly in the SEM side of things (banner creation, tracking, tweaking to increase conversions).

                                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                • Blargh123
                                                  Blargh123 @Dan-Petrovic last edited by

                                                  Gotta love this!!! Most of my days are alot of information gathering then that one day of execution!! very grattifying!

                                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                                                  • eric_since1910.com
                                                    eric_since1910.com last edited by

                                                    This is a great question!  My best hidden SEO secret is developing relationships with resources of particular specialties so you can get specific help in the area you are focusing on.  Similiary how a Dr. will refer you to a specialist, in SEO, there are plenty of general SEO's out there, but there are a few stand outs in particular specialties.

                                                    danbocain 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                                    • spnet
                                                      spnet last edited by

                                                      My best experience to track the competitors, review their strategy and then choose best point from each of competitors and make a strong strategy for project.  I use to analysis strategy on weekly basis. Also used some tools for competitor tracking.

                                                      Your competitor give you a lot of new ideas........

                                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                                      • tclendaniel
                                                        tclendaniel @Francisco_Meza last edited by

                                                        Almost identical to Francis, with a twist.  I make almost all my revenue from AdSense (weird, I know).  It took me a while to learn to do things in keyword research- 1) focus on high revenue per 1000 visitors stats for sellecting priority keywords by linking AdSense and Googgle Analytics, and 2) looking for the highest CPC keywords in the GoogleExternal Keyword Tool and then sorting on difficulty- oddly, in my space, a few lower-competition terms have extremely high CPC,making them prime targets for new pages onmy site andSEO efforts behind them.

                                                        Blargh123 MozMan2 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                                        • semvibe
                                                          semvibe last edited by

                                                          My hidden secret is - a) build the website for the visitor b) be honest on your keyword choices c) follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines and Search comes your way.

                                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                          • NicoleMunoz
                                                            NicoleMunoz @caseyhen last edited by

                                                            I agree... great answer and very helpful!

                                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                            • BlooFusion38
                                                              BlooFusion38 last edited by

                                                              SEO Metrics: Focus on juicy analytics instead of shallow ranking reports. And get your company (or your clients) to follow you down that path.

                                                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                              • UPform5
                                                                UPform5 last edited by

                                                                Paid tools... you really have to invest in order for you to conquer, I can share some but I personally think SEOmoz has all of them but you can still find good ones outside which SEOmoz also mentions hehehe

                                                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                                                                • RedScooter
                                                                  RedScooter last edited by

                                                                  I have a whole list. 🙂 Patience and consistency. SEO is easy, but you have to constantly keep learning and trying new things. It often takes awhile to see results. Keep working and don't give up. As long as you create quality content and links that are relevant, eventually your hard work will pay off. Constantly learning is another key. Search engines change their algorithms over time, and your competitors are always changing, so you'll never be done. I like to set my homepage to an rss feed reader, where I've subscribed to about 10 blogs ranging from SEO to marketing to copywriting. That way new information is always the first thing I see, and I'm less likely to waste time on games or random browsing. Finally, having a network of people to help and encourage you can make the difference between giving up and sticking with it. You can learn from each other and provide sympathy and sometimes a little healthy competition.

                                                                  glennfriesen 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                                                  • danbocain
                                                                    danbocain last edited by

                                                                    Guest blogging. It's nothing new, it's nothing that requires a lot of talent, but my god! It does the trick for most clients I manage. Helps me acquires custom anchor text dofollow links from themed sites and the long term relationship with these blog owners are worth their "weight" in gold!  You get a great link, you get some referral traffic, and you expand your network. Triple win!

                                                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 12
                                                                    • TheARKlady
                                                                      TheARKlady last edited by

                                                                      @Mark Hodson bought to mind something we do as a B2B service. We structured a questionaire that asks for industry terms and customer terms along with geotargeting information for local search. In many cases, the terms that the company or staff think are appropriate actually are very far from it. In addition certifications and awards often come in handy as well as professional memberships because they help us identify terms and other opportunities for SEO.

                                                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                                      • petrakraft
                                                                        petrakraft @MarkHodson last edited by

                                                                        Great suggestions - thank's

                                                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                                        • MarkHodson
                                                                          MarkHodson last edited by

                                                                          My best tip: get to know the sales team. I think a lot of SEOs fail to look up from their screens and recognise they are working for a real business - and that it's the sales team that have first-hand, all-day access to your paying customers.

                                                                          I've just started working for a small travel business with a sales team of three who answer phones all day from clients. I spent a session with them, explained briefly what I'm doing and asked them a slew of questions such as:

                                                                          • How do people describe the products? How do they categorise types of product. This feeds directly into KW research.

                                                                          • What do people ask for that isn't on the site? Great for content development ideas / usability.

                                                                          • What questions do people ask about the company? For instance, if lots of people seem unsure about whether this is a real company or just a website, create a prominent "about us" section.

                                                                          • At which points in the booking funnel do customers call to say they are stuck ? This is a great way of identifying usability issues. Users don't call the UX guys, they call the sales team.

                                                                          It's important to remember that sales people don't give a stuff about SEO, so your first task is to explain to them that your job is to send them more leads. At this point you'll see their indifference slowly turn to interest.

                                                                          Give it a try, it's incredibly valuable. Perhaps a subject for a future YouMoz post?

                                                                          petrakraft LuminConsutling MontanaFlynn83 seanmccauley webalive 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 27
                                                                          • petrakraft
                                                                            petrakraft @TheARKlady last edited by

                                                                            Thank's for the reply 🙂

                                                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                                            • TheARKlady
                                                                              TheARKlady last edited by

                                                                              Hmm, secrets? First, I do seo writing so I tend to look at things from that angle but have gotten into more seo itself as I work with more businesses and web designers. I agree that working and then taking a break is a great idea because sometimes the research can blind you. LOL

                                                                              But I think making sure you get the best info from the client or on the project prior to starting is essential and can help cut down the time spent in further research or is critical in targeting terms within a highly competitive category.

                                                                              I also use research tools to help condense the process while I ponder competition and their optimization prior to starting.

                                                                              petrakraft 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                                              • DanDeceuster
                                                                                DanDeceuster last edited by

                                                                                The secret to good SEO is to stop wasting time with automation tools. SEO simply cannot be automated and left to a robot. If it could, none of us would have jobs 🙂

                                                                                If it automates directory submissions, bookmarks, articles, blog comments or anything else, it's useless and should be left alone. Far too many SEO folks waste far too much time tinkering around with them...only to figure out they are useless and that they wasted a lot of time. The Onion comically gives us another great way to stop wasting time:

                                                                                http://www.theonion.com/articles/openminded-man-grimly-realizes-how-much-life-hes-w,19273/

                                                                                Blargh123 nimbledigit 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 9
                                                                                • MarcinKowalik-195750
                                                                                  MarcinKowalik-195750 last edited by

                                                                                  Before creating costly, but usefull content - doing heavy topic research within the target group...

                                                                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                                                                  • rmteamseo
                                                                                    rmteamseo last edited by

                                                                                    I think one of the most overlooked aspects of good SEO is semantic markup and good onpage optimisation, and no it is not just getting those h1s and h2s sorted.

                                                                                    And i totally agree with Dejan Petrovic, that one hour of "getting in the zone" makes all the difference!

                                                                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                                                                    • KrisRoadruck
                                                                                      KrisRoadruck @Dan-Petrovic last edited by

                                                                                      Oh man this is me to a T. Its hard to explain to others that the rest of the time spent farting around online is really a primer for this. If I just tried to come in for an hour and leave It would never be an in the zone hour.

                                                                                      jdeb glennfriesen 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 8
                                                                                      • petrakraft
                                                                                        petrakraft @WillyF last edited by

                                                                                        Thank you for your response 🙂 - great suggestion!

                                                                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                                                                                        • WillyF
                                                                                          WillyF last edited by

                                                                                          I run a site with a daily e-mail list. Every day I get a few out of office replies from people who subscribe to the list.These are typically college employees, and their auto-response gives me their name, e-mail address, and job title. Since I know they already use my site and I now know who they are, I can target people to make link requests with a much more personal approach. It's probably unique to my specific niche, but it actually works really well.

                                                                                          petrakraft 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 15
                                                                                          • Francisco_Meza
                                                                                            Francisco_Meza last edited by

                                                                                            To optimze a webpage for my number one converting keyword in Google Adwords instead of purely going off Google Keyword Tool.

                                                                                            tclendaniel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
                                                                                            • Ken_Jansen
                                                                                              Ken_Jansen last edited by

                                                                                              Chunking the big goals into smaller ones which I can achieve a little bit each day. Keeping an eye on my top competitors to see from crawl to crawl or week to week, how fast am I gaining on them.

                                                                                              LauraThomas 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                                                                                              • petrakraft
                                                                                                petrakraft @caseyhen last edited by

                                                                                                Hi Casey - I can't click any more "Helpful" answer - but I like this one most! That is definetifely true!!

                                                                                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                                                                                • caseyhen
                                                                                                  caseyhen last edited by

                                                                                                  Biggest secret that I have is to make great connections to people in the business.  I can't count the number of times I've run into a strange issue and it's great to be able to email someone you've meet with your question and get some expert feedback.  Not to mention sometimes they share their super secret SEO tricks and tips.

                                                                                                  petrakraft NicoleMunoz Blargh123 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 23
                                                                                                  • DonnieCooper
                                                                                                    DonnieCooper last edited by

                                                                                                    I to use the free $75 of adwords (in the SEOmoz discount store) for every new customer to test their keywords. I think it's an over looked opprotunity by a ton of SEO's.

                                                                                                    As a by product, customers love that you're running paid ads for free, and it gives you a chance to up sell them (if you can prove a return for them).

                                                                                                    NickPateman81 JohnFCarroll 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 33
                                                                                                    • ThomasHgenhaven
                                                                                                      ThomasHgenhaven last edited by

                                                                                                      One more thing: building a community and optimizing their contributions. That is the very future of SEO in my opinion.

                                                                                                      duncan274 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                                                                                      • ThomasHgenhaven
                                                                                                        ThomasHgenhaven @gfiorelli1 last edited by

                                                                                                        I do that too! Only little problem with that is it often creates some significant bumps in link acquisition rates.

                                                                                                        Budskab 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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                                                                                                        • carlystemmer

                                                                                                          404's - Do they impact search ranking/how do we get rid of them?

                                                                                                          Hi, We recently ran the Moz website crawl report and saw a number of 404 pages from our site come back. These were returned as "high priority" issues to fix. My question is, how do 404's impact search ranking? From what Google support tells me, 404's are "normal" and not a big deal to fix, but if they are "high priority" shouldn't we be doing something to remove them? Also, if I do want to remove the pages, how would I go about doing so? Is it enough to go into Webmaster tools and list it as a link no to crawl anymore or do we need to do work from the website development side as well? Here are a couple of examples that came back..these are articles that were previously posted but we decided to close out: http://loyalty360.org/loyalty-management/september-2011/let-me-guessyour-loyalty-program-isnt-working http://loyalty360.org/resources/article/mark-johnson-speaks-at-motivation-show Thanks!

                                                                                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | carlystemmer
                                                                                                          0
                                                                                                        • 94501

                                                                                                          How can I get a list of every url of a site in Google's index?

                                                                                                          I work on a site that has almost 20,000 urls in its site map. Google WMT claims 28,000 indexed and a search on Google shows 33,000. I'd like to find what the difference is. Is there a way to get an excel sheet with every url Google has indexed for a site? Thanks... Mike

                                                                                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 94501
                                                                                                          0
                                                                                                        • dancape

                                                                                                          Using the same content on different TLD's

                                                                                                          HI Everyone, We have clients for whom we are going to work with in different countries but sometimes with the same  language. For example we might have a client in a competitive niche working in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Swiss German) ie we're going to potentially rewrite our website three times in German, We're thinking of using Google's href lang tags and use pretty much the same content - is this a safe option, has anyone actually tries this successfully or otherwise? All answers appreciated. Cheers, Mel.

                                                                                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dancape
                                                                                                          1
                                                                                                        • NerdsOnCall

                                                                                                          What's the deal with significantLinks?

                                                                                                          http://schema.org/significantLink Schema.org has a definition for "non-navigation links that are clicked on the most." Presumably this means something like the big green buttons on Moz's homepage. But does anyone know how they affect anything? In http://moz.com/blog/schemaorg-a-new-approach-to-structured-data-for-seo#comment-142936, Jeremy Nelson says " It's quite possible that significant links will pass anchor text as well if a previous link to the page was set in navigation, effictively making obselete the first-link-counts rule, and I am interested in putting that to test." This is a pretty obscure comment but it's one of the only results I could find on the subject. Is this BS? I can't even make out what all of it is saying. So what's the deal with significantLinks and how can we use them to SEO?

                                                                                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NerdsOnCall
                                                                                                          0
                                                                                                        • digisavvy

                                                                                                          There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?

                                                                                                          Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.

                                                                                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy
                                                                                                          0

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