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Happy 25th Anniversary, Bruce Clay Inc.! Find Out How It All Started…

Bruce Clay, Inc. — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:58:33 +0000

This year we hit a milestone: 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of Bruce Clay Inc.! What started in January 1996 with one man working off his dining room table has grown into a multimillion-dollar agency that has served thousands of clients via offices around the world.

So how did we get our start? The story goes way back to the 1990s, before search engine optimization — or Google — was even a thing. Bruce, having run several other businesses, was ready for a change. He started a consultancy in his name (Bruce Clay Inc.) and well, the rest is history.

We know the timeline (see our company history here). But we wanted to hear the story of how we got to where we are today from the man himself. So enjoy this interview with Bruce, which details the journey of how a guy with a vision of internet business turned Bruce Clay Inc. into a global brand.

The year was 1996… how did you get started?
What was business like the first year?
What were your first clients like?
Tell me about the first big milestone for Bruce Clay, Inc.
Let’s talk a little more about the early SEO conference days
What are some of your achievements over the years?
When did you start the SEO training program and why?
When did you launch the SEOToolSet and why?
How did the brand go international?
What sets BCI apart?
What do you like best about what you do?
What’s in store for Bruce Clay Inc?
FAQ: What were the early challenges Bruce Clay Inc. faced in the ever-changing landscape of search engine optimization?

The year was 1996 … how did you get started?

Bruce: My bachelor’s is in math and computer science, and I’m a programmer at heart, even though I was managing businesses before that. And my MBA is from Pepperdine, so I liked the concept of business marketing.

Prior to 1996, I had run other businesses. And I decided I really wanted to be a consultant. I didn’t want a cast of thousands in multiple cities nor did I want any of the things that went with operating a business.

My general feeling at the time was it’s just gonna be me, my notebook computer, and a Corona on a beach. That’s what I was going to do. And it ended up taking on a life of its own.

Back in January of ‘96, when Al Gore “invented” the internet (even though the internet had been around for 20 years), everything I read made me realize it was going to get to be really, really big. And I looked around and determined that marketing on the internet was through something called a search engine.

I figured out how all the data moved around and what kind of data the search engines used. And it really turned out to be a puzzle. And the more I did it, the more I loved it.

But this was years before Google. The landscape had Infoseek, AltaVista, Excite. It was chaos at the time. We actually made the very first search engine relationship chart pretty early on, in the year 2000 (you can see that below).

Original Search Engine Relationship Chart, circa 2000

What was business like the first year?

Bruce: A vast majority of the time, I was building the website and doing a lot of research on search engine ranking, which is what it was called back in the day.

I used Netscape to build my handwritten HTML website. I learned how HTML and search engines could work together if I changed the HTML. I just kept adding content. So there was a lot of experimentation going on.

And then, all of a sudden, people started hiring me. I was making enough money to make ends meet and grow.

And then, I started getting more business, and I raised my prices. Then, I got more business, and I hired people. Then we raised our prices, and I got more business again. And before you knew it, I had to move the business out of the house. That was in the year 2000.

What were your first clients like?

Bruce: They were very small companies — like one-person companies. They were people who said, Hey, I’m going to get on the internet. I’m going to sell this thing online.

I remember that one of my first few clients was an actual witch.

So I felt very good because I think every SEO company at the beginning needs to have a witch on their client list.

Tell me about the first big milestone for Bruce Clay Inc.

Bruce: Well, the first real milestone didn’t happen quickly. I think the first milestone was when I could afford staff. Then the next milestone was probably when I started speaking at Danny Sullivan’s conferences, Search Engine Strategies.

And then, from there, the next milestone was probably a million-dollar year. And then it kept going from there.

After reaching those milestones, I felt I had really succeeded. I had run other businesses successfully, but with Bruce Clay Inc., I pivoted into a whole new, yet-to-be-discovered industry, and I was once again succeeding.

Anybody can succeed once. So I really felt strongly that I had actually succeeded twice.

Let’s talk a little more about the early SEO conference days…

Bruce: I think ‘99 was the first year of Search Engine Strategies. For the very first one, I was there, as were most of the people who had started doing search engine ranking.

Danny Sullivan got all the key speakers together for his conference. We all sat at one table in a bar to discuss what we were doing. That was the conference. That’s how few of us there were.

Had there been an earthquake or disaster of some kind, the SEO industry would have been wiped out.

A lot of my early fame was because I was vocal and answered questions freely, participated in conferences and gave away information. And I’ve been given a lot of credit for the foundation-building of the industry by doing that.

And I’m proud to be in that position. I think that’s how I got the honor of having colleagues name me the Father of SEO.

Bruce being interviewed at SES Conference in 2012

What are some of your achievements over the years?

Bruce: Well, obviously, there is success. That is really a great thing.

Over the years, I have been on TV shows, in major publications like Wired magazine’s spread on Google before Google went public, and even on the cover of magazines. We’ve been pretty fortunate that we’ve been able to retain recognition.

When Wiley asked me to write the Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies book, that was a nice surprise and recognition.

I also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from The History of SEO advisory board.

Cover of The Silicon Review Jan. 2021

One of the other things that comes to mind — almost a moment when I didn’t know how to react — was the first few times that people came up and asked to have their picture taken with me or asked for an autograph. The first time that happens, it’s like, You’re talking to me?

I could have let it go to my head and become a really terrible person. But all it made me do was double my efforts to train people, answer questions, and engage.

When did you start the SEO training program and why?

Bruce: The catalyst was a client who asked for on-site SEO training around 1998. I had a lot of materials because I was training my staff, but I didn’t have a formal training program. So I had to create one.

I built a PowerPoint deck and went out and did the training.

Bruce Clay giving SEO training

And it was a couple of years later that I started offering my own classroom course.

So I’ve been doing training for about 23 years now. I’ve trained over 5,000 people by my rough count. Now we are releasing our online SEO training course in March.

When did you launch the SEOToolSet and why?

Bruce: Within six months of starting the company, I wrote my first tool. At the time, it was called the Keyword Density Analyzer, which evolved into the Single Page Analyzer today.

I was tracking keywords in spreadsheets for pages I was optimizing, and it became very tedious. So I wrote a program that would read the webpage and build a report that told me where all the keywords and keyword phrases were used on the page.

I started building the tools out in about 1998, and we have 40 of them in the SEOToolSet^® today. Recently we added a WordPress plugin and even got a patent for our analysis software. And we are expanding the SEOToolSet even more in the near future.

How did the brand go international?

Bruce: I had people from other countries asking me if they could open Bruce Clay offices. The first time that happened, there were a number of things that ran through my mind — Do I want to do this? Is it going to succeed? How do I structure it? — But equally as important was: Is it a place I want to go on a vacation?

And Sydney, Australia, was nice. So I set up Australia first in 2007. Today, we have offices there and also in Japan, India, and Dubai. We are looking to expand in Europe and Singapore next.

In many cases, the international locations had clients before they even had offices because the brand was strong. I would make sure the employees knew what they were doing beforehand, but we also had our training program in place. So we were able to train people to do SEO our way.

The international offices were almost an instant success.

What sets BCI apart?

Bruce: There are a great many companies that have only one expert and a whole bunch of junior people supporting them. At BCI, we are now a company of only experts. I made the decision a few years back that 100% of the staff working on client projects would have 10 years or more of experience in their field.

By hiring experts, I found that larger companies are drawn to us. I’ve had people come to us and say the reason they are talking to us is they got tired of having to train the prior agency’s SEO team on how to do SEO because they knew more than them.

So we’re a company of experts. We’re certainly not the cheapest nor the most expensive in town, but we are one of the best. We’re not a cast of hundreds of employees here in the U.S. We don’t need to have hundreds to be the best.

What do you like best about what you do?

Bruce Clay being interviewed in 2021 via Zoom

Bruce: I solve puzzles for a living.

We are working in an environment that is a moving target. Google changes the algorithm an average of 10 times a day. You have competitors that want your lunch, and they’re going to do whatever it takes for them to get it.

Every day, we go to war. Your website is the tool we bring to the battle as the weapon. We are fighting in real time against other businesses in the search results. If we lose, the client company might have to let people go.

Some other industries out there are not so mission critical in any given moment. If an SEO messes up a company’s website and SEO strategy, they could damage the company’s revenue and people’s livelihood.

And so there’s a level of responsibility with SEO that very few industries have.

What’s in store for Bruce Clay Inc.?

Bruce: In the first month of 2021, we saw almost exponential growth. I think 2021 is going to be an unbelievably amazing year for digital marketing because everybody’s at home.

Things pivoted in 2020, but nobody knew the impact of it until this year when all of the marketing money was going to digital. From the inquiries that we’ve had in January, I see that companies recognize that there’s an opportunity they need to jump on.

We may have to hire a person a month for the whole year just to keep up with growth, maybe more! So I expect 2021 to see rapid growth. Our near-term focus is on SEO training and the SEOToolSet. And services, of course, will need to keep up with demand.

Happy 25th anniversary to Bruce Clay Inc.! We look forward to many more years of serving businesses with the very best SEO strategies out there.

Interested in talking with us about your digital marketing needs? Request a quote for a free consultation, or learn more about Bruce Clay Inc. today.

FAQ: What Were the Early Challenges Bruce Clay Inc. Faced in the Ever-Changing Landscape of Search Engine Optimization?

As the SEO industry’s landscape emerged and evolved, Bruce Clay Inc. found itself at the forefront of pioneering strategies and tactics. The nascent days were marked by uncharted territory, where algorithms were erratic, and practices were experimental. This article explores the challenges that Bruce Clay Inc. grappled with during this formative period.

In the dawn of SEO, algorithms were rudimentary and often unpredictable. The challenge lay in deciphering these algorithms, which lacked transparency and consistency. As a result, optimizing websites for search engines demanded an almost intuitive understanding of their behavior. This dynamic environment required continuous adaptation, forming the bedrock of the company’s commitment to staying ahead.

Moreover, the scarcity of reliable resources and guidelines compounded the challenges. SEO professionals like Bruce Clay Inc. had to rely on trial and error without standardized practices. Crafting effective strategies meant relying on experience and intuition rather than established conventions. This early phase thus demanded a willingness to experiment and innovate, shaping the company’s foundation of expertise.

The infancy of SEO also witnessed a lack of awareness among businesses about its potential impact. Convincing clients of the value of SEO posed yet another hurdle. The team at Bruce Clay Inc. had to effectively communicate the significance of ranking higher on search engines, often pioneering the concept to skeptical clients. This experience solidified the company’s role as a practitioner and educator, helping clients navigate unfamiliar terrain.

Transitioning from traditional marketing to digital was yet another uphill task. SEO was a relatively novel concept, and industries were skeptical about its efficacy. Bruce Clay Inc. faced the challenge of establishing credibility and proving SEO ROI to businesses accustomed to traditional advertising methods. This experience honed the company’s ability to showcase tangible results, a skill that remains integral to its success.

The early challenges faced by Bruce Clay Inc. in the dynamic realm of SEO shaped its trajectory into becoming a trailblazing authority in the industry. Navigating the unpredictable algorithms, experimenting with nascent strategies, and advocating the potential of SEO to skeptical clients were all instrumental in forging the company’s identity. These challenges, once surmounted, laid the groundwork for Bruce Clay Inc.’s continued success and expertise in the ever-changing landscape of search engine optimization.

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Search Expert Duane Forrester Joins Bruce Clay, Inc. as VP of Organic Search Operations to Take the Road Less Traveled

Melanie Saxe — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 23:30:16 +0000

Where does the former lead SEO at Microsoft/MSN and leader in the development of Bing Webmaster Tools go after an eight-year tenure at Microsoft? If the corporate world is a freeway, Duane Forrester heads for the exit, takes the road less traveled, and joins Bruce Clay, Inc. in a newly created position as Vice President, Organic Search Operations.

It’s time to enjoy the open road.

Bruce Clay, Inc. adds Duane Forrester to the team in order to provide businesses with an exclusive advantage in search engine optimization methodology and digital marketing strategy. Forrester, who was awarded Search Personality of the Year at the 2014 U.S. Search Awards, is a visible and popular figure in the search industry.

“Everyone knows that Duane could have gone to work for any company he wanted,” says our president, Bruce Clay. “It’s an honor that he chose to work here.”

“@DuaneForrester could work for any company he wants. It’s an honor he chose BCI.”
Click To Tweet

Duane will have oversight of the organic search direction at Bruce Clay, Inc., as well as the company’s content, social media and design departments. He will also serve as a spokesman for Bruce Clay, Inc. by attending and speaking at industry conferences.

“Duane has great experience with how things work, and that will help us to enhance our existing capabilities for all aspects of digital marketing, including SEO, social media and web design. This is the man who created the Bing Webmaster Tools — that will give us a wealth of insight,” Bruce points out.

An SEO with Many Talents

Duane’s professional career path reveals a man who wears many hats — but one who wears each hat confidently. It’s easy to see why, no matter which hat he wears, Duane gives his all to the project or company at hand. He comes from a small business background and helped run a family-owned motel for 16 years. It was during this time that he learned what it takes to run a small business and discovered that he has a passion for helping companies grow.

Duane has made significant contributions to every place he’s worked, from developing the first player’s program for Caesar’s Palace in Canada to managing SEO at a sports startup that has since become a leader in the sports content publishing world.

Then, Microsoft called. During his eight-year career at Microsoft, Duane served as senior product manager at Bing — a role that led to the creation of Bing Webmaster Tools — and spent nearly five years as the primary touchpoint between Bing and the webmaster community. During this time he became known as the approachable face of Bing, bridging the gap between the search engine’s inner workings and the information-hungry SEO community.

“If you’ve ever heard Duane speak at a conference, you know that he is able to answer any question about how a search engine handles particular SEO concerns, from 404 pages to HTTPS,” said Mindy Weinstein, director of training at Bruce Clay, Inc. “He always has an answer and a thorough explanation — we are so excited to be able to take that experience and infuse it into our analysts’ ongoing education and our open enrollment SEOToolSet Training.”

“@DuaneForrester can answer any question about how a search engine handles #SEO concerns.”
Click To Tweet

So, the Big Question: Why BCI?

“Over the past decade I’ve been approached by countless agencies,” says Duane. “However, Bruce Clay, Inc. is different because of three main pillars that we stand on: services, proprietary tools, and talent. Most agencies don’t have as deep a tool set. They use rich tools, but not proprietary tools. If they need something fine-tuned for a client, they can’t walk down the hall and ask the programmer to add a parameter — which is something we can do.”

“When it comes to talent, I see agencies struggle. BCI is very stable and has an expert knowledge base. I know the team that’s here — and they’re smart SEOs.”

The Road Ahead

For Duane, the role of VP of organic search operations at BCI will allow him to take all of his cumulative experience and use it in new ways. He will be free to talk openly about Google, turn ideas into products faster, and enjoy the open roads of sunny Southern California — on the weekends, of course.

For BCI, having Duane on the team is a natural part of the company’s growth and commitment to excellence. For the last eight years in a row, Bruce Clay, Inc. has made the Inc. Magazine 500|5000 list as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. Most recently, in September the company added author, speaker, and paid search expert David Szetela as VP of paid search marketing operations.

“A growing number of our clients come to us for both SEO and PPC services, and Duane’s deep understanding of both disciplines will help accelerate that growth,” David explains.

Are You Confident in Your SEO Agency?

SEO is technical. You pay an SEO agency for its technical insight, experience, and ability to drive traffic to your site that grows your business. What if an agency had all of the above, plus skills and experience that no other agency could claim?

What if an SEO agency had Duane Forrester on the team?

With the addition of Duane Forrester, Bruce Clay, Inc. brings his knowledge of SEO to the world-class offerings of the company.

“If companies want to win at SEO, they should talk to us at some point,” says Bruce.

So let’s talk.

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Two Power Players Talk SEO & Social: Bruce Clay and David Amerland’s Video HOA

Kristi Kellogg — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 17:59:35 +0000

Bruce Clay shared his marketing insights on SEO, branding and social media yesterday on “Social Media Today Power Talk,” a monthly digital marketing show hosted by David Amerland. Amerland is the author of many digital marketing books, including “SEO Help: 20 Semantic Search Steps,” “Google Semantic Search,” and “Google+ Hangouts for Business,” and a stand-out Google+ influencer with more than 350K followers. Bruce was honored to be a guest on this lively episode of Social Media Power Talk, which you can relive complete with comments on the event page here.

Watch the entire show above or read on for select highlights, including Bruce’s thoughts on:

The Evolution of SEO
Why Some People Think SEO is Dead
The Necessity of Planning 2-5 Years Ahead
The Cube Theory
Making Your Team Work as a Team
The Effect of Social Buzz on Ranking

The Evolution of the SEO

Amerland asks Bruce why it is that people persist with asking “Is SEO dead?” Bruce explained that it’s because SEO is dead — at least in a sense.

“In the beginning SEO was rather simple — you optimized a page, got some links and you would rank. Up until seven years ago, SEO was not as complex as it is today. I’ve actually said SEO is dead as it was. It has evolved. Today’s SEO is not like the SEO of ten years ago, or five years ago, or two years. What goes into SEO today is far more technical, it is more far-reaching, it has much more visibility and more people think they’re doing SEO than actually are,” Bruce explained.

“In the beginning, many of the people that were doing SEO grew up by being pseudo-programmers. They were doing web design, maybe programming, they were technical, had technical backgrounds, they were editing HTML, etc. The problem is they grew up in that world and never had a marketing course — maybe never even read a marketing book. They don’t really understand personas or communities or any of the things that are now fundamental to proper targeting and understanding who it is that your audience needs to reach and the terminology they use when they do queries. In the beginning, it was just one keyword, edit the page, get some links and you were an SEO. Today it is much broader.”

Why Some People Think SEO is Dead

What did the audience think about the state of SEO? Co-host Alexandra Riecke-Gonzales polled the audience and found that while the majority views SEO as evolving (as Bruce does), ten percent of viewers do, in fact, think SEO is dead.

Bruce weighed in: “I would easily view the ten percent that think SEO is dead are the people that either got burned by it or the only way they thought SEO worked was through links — and links are dead. There are a lot of people who lost faith in SEO because the only SEO they knew was spam. And if spam is dead, then ‘SEO’ is dead,” Bruce said.

What about those who think social media marketing is replacing SEO?

“Social hasn’t replaced SEO and if you look at any attribution model what you’re going to find is that when you do things socially, organic search traffic goes up. It’s the attribution that fails. It’s a stimulus response. Most people think SEO starts when you do the query but from a traffic point-of-view, SEO starts when you plant the seed in their brain to start the query — and social is upstream of the organic query. A lot of people perceive social media marketing, then, as the new SEO — but it’s not. The fact is if that if you don’t rank it doesn’t matter if you trigger them to do a query because you’re not going to get the traffic anyhow. Social media marketing is never going to replace SEO, but it is fully complimentary to SEO,” Bruce explained.

Successful SEOs are Planning 2-5 Years Ahead

“Anyone who’s doing SEO right is looking to the future. You have to imagine search two to five years out because it will take you a year to develop the ability to be two years out. If you can envision what search will look like two years from now, then you know to do it. Two years ago, we anticipated that mobile would conquer the world. We knew that Google would shift its focus from desktop to mobile,” Bruce said. “Forty years ago the world switched from main frame computers to PC, and now people are switching from PC to tablets and mobile.”

The Cube Theory

Bruce: “The proper way of viewing digital marketing for search is to look at it three-dimensionally. There’s a spatial relationship between all the components in a cubed way they all touch each other. As with a cube, they all touch each other. PPC deals with social and SEO, and PPC has landing pages. But you can also imagine that when the web design team redesigns a site, they have to make sure that the SEO is right and the PPC landing pages are still right. They also have to worry about quality score, performance, economic goals and duplicate content. All these various components of a business that has to do with what a user will see are actually a single component. Digital marketing is a single, 3D operating unit. If each side (representing a function) doesn’t communicate and cooperate with the other sides, a business is destined to fail.”

Bruce Clay, Inc. Internal Structure: Education and Teamwork

Bruce explained that everyone that comes through his company has to go through extensive training. “We have a formal training program and a full immersion program. Even when we hire a senior SEO, for the first two months they don’t have projects.”

The Importance of Ongoing Education

In order to be a leader, you have to pay attention to what’s going on out there. We assign about 120 hours a month of actual project work and we’re expect that the other 40 hours a month are spent on education — reading, paying attention, classes, courses, webinars, conferences, etc. We provide our staff sufficient time for them to be knowledgeable on all algorithm changes as they happen.

‘We Make Our Team Work as a Team’

At Bruce Clay, Inc., everyone is involved in projects.

“That isn’t to say that we don’t have people that focus on SEO, people that focus on PPC, people that focus on content and social, etc., but they’re all connected. PPC is thirty feet from SEO and they’re working on the same projects. When we have a call with a client, all the departments are on the call. They hear what the status is, share knowledge, etc. SEO hears what PPC has to say and vice versa. We’ve gone way out our way to make our team work as a team,” Bruce explained.

The Effect of Social Buzz on Ranking

Audience members were curious about social media’s affect on search rankings, especially with the recent announcement that Twitter will be giving Google access to its fire hose. Audience member Cynthia Turcotte asked: “Does this mean that social reach (in particular Twitter reach) is going to become a more significant ranking factor than previously?”

“Yes, no, yes,” Bruce joked. “In the beginning, what was going with the fire hose from Twitter was that Google was picking up links. At the time, they were followed links and that was influencing Google. Spammers figured that out and then ultimately the Twitter interface died off. Now it’s going to come back, but I don’t think Google is going to look at links, but rather buzz. I expect to see that if a site is getting a lot of comments and it’s driving traffic through Twitter, those comments will cause a temporary (24-hour) impact in Google rankings. It will perhaps even promote something up into the first page. This will be a factor of buzz.”

Another audience member, Deborah Norton, asked a follow-up question: “Where do you see Google+ going in the future? Are tweets going to compete with Google+ posts?”

I think that Google is going to experiment. I think we’re going to see tweets show up if they’re very high volume. If they’re medium volume, they’ll have some influence. Tweets will be a minor variable if they’re low traffic — for example, only have three retweets.

I don’t know that Google is going to ever really bring back a Google+ in a social way. It still influences things. Take the author tag, for example. Google said they’re no longer going to be showing it in the search results, and they don’t. Google never said, however, that they’re ignoring it. So, it may be that a lot of these things — Google+, Twitter, etc. — it’s entirely possible that these things influence results, whether or not Google says it is.

Thank you to host David Amerland for inviting Bruce Clay to the show! Get more episodes and further information on “Social Media Today Power Talk” here.

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Bruce Clay’s SEO Predictions for 2014, Google Trends and More in the SEO Newsletter

Kristi Kellogg — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 21:56:27 +0000

This month’s 2014 Trends Edition of the SEO Newsletter, features Bruce Clay’s exclusive 2014 predictions for the SEO industry. Readers will also find an article on the many ways to use Google Trends for research and data visualization and the monthly roundup of Internet marketing top developments, shifts and happenings.

Bruce Clay’s 2014 Predictions for the SEO Industry

Clay, an Internet marketing thought-leader since 1996 who is widely known as a founding father of SEO has shared his SEO predictions every year since 2006. In this eight annual installment, Clay identifies the changes he expects to see when it comes to spam treatment, SERP makeup, mobile search, local search, video search and voice search. Among Clay’s insights:

“Google will introduce enhanced features to local results that businesses can buy, much like exists with PPC, or coupons with local listings. Local search results will be displayed for more than half of all searches across all devices.”
“Google will continue its crusade to root out spam and in doing so may extend the breadth of its net so even ‘minor offenses’ will be identified and punished. Negative SEO will be treated by Google as a major penalty offense, with Google detecting it and punishing it at the highest end of the spam severity scale.”
“Google will drop the number of ‘blue links’ organic listings on the first results page to five.”

10 Reasons You Should Use Google Trends for More Than Just Keyword Research

In this month’s back-to-basics article, Chelsea Adams dives into the features that make Google Trends much more than a keyword research tool. Be sure to review 10 Reasons You Should Use Google Trends for More Than Just Keyword Research. The multidimensional view provided by Google Trends can directly inform marketing strategy as you learn search trends and corresponding factors, including seasonality, geographic location and media coverage. The advantages of using Google Trends are many:

The data is extremely visual and dynamic, which is especially useful for visual learners (65 percent of the population).
You can assess and graph five keywords simultaneously.
When performing a query, Google Trends operates on inferred intent, meaning that it includes misspellings and synonymous words/ideas.

January’s Hot Topic features Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s outlook for 2014, as shared in recent appearance on Bloomberg TV’s “Ask A Millionaire.” Schmidt reveals his predictions for 2014’s biggest change, 2014’s biggest disruptor and 2014’s biggest disruption. In Education Matters, get the 411 on the Internet Marketing Conference Calendar that lists every major Internet marketing conference the world over in 2014.

~~Like~~ Love Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEO Newsletter? Never miss an SEO Newsletter article — get the news delivered straight to your inbox monthly when you sign up here. You can also check out the SEO Newsletter archives, filled with Internet marketing articles dating back to 2004.

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Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient at Bend WebCAM and Liveblog Roundup

Kristi Kellogg — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 18:23:49 +0000

Lifetime Achievement Award for Bruce Clay

When Bruce Clay took off for Bend WebCAM, he knew he would be sitting on a Hot Seat Panel and presenting a three-hour workshop on SEO for the Non-SEO. What Clay didn’t know was that he was going to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, putting him in the company of last year’s recipient Danny Sullivan and inaugural honoree John Audette.

“It was an easy decision,” said Mark Knowles, co-chair of Bend WebCAM, CEO of Pixelsilk and curator of The History of SEO. “Bruce is a legendary pioneer.”

According to Knowles, Clay impacted the SEO industry early on, and “today’s thought leaders were influenced by (him).”

Bruce Clay receives a Lifetime Achievement Award from Mark Knowles, co-chair of Bend WebCAM.

“It is definitely an honor to receive any award for service to the industry, and receiving this award is certainly a major event in the history of Bruce Clay, Inc.,” Clay said. “I have always tried to contribute either through the website, the training, the event speaking, and the frequent free advice. Being available, approachable and involved is clearly appreciated by colleagues, and it is really nice that my efforts have been broadly appreciated. I am truly excited that I have joined the few that have already received this prestigious award.”

Bend WebCAM Liveblog Roundup

BCI Content/Media Manager Virginia Nussey was on scene, liveblogging the following keynote addresses and sessions:

Mad Women: A Herstory of Advertising

Speaker: Christina Knight, Creative Director

She explains:

What the “pink ghetto” is.
The importance of both quality and equality.
What changes still need to be made.

Quotable moment: “No society is all male, white and middle class. Modern society is characterized by multitude and diversity. Agencies need to be as inclusive to be relevant and interesting.”

The Importance of Building a Community for Your Brand, Website, Customer Base and General Well Being

Speaker: Marshall Simmonds, CEO and Founder of Define Media Group

Learn why:

The word’s top publishers are so successful.
It is necessary to identify a goal — and use Google Analytics to track it.
You should leverage Google+, a major influencer in search results (even in your audience isn’t on Google+).

Quotable moment: “Google says it has found more than 30 trillion unique URLs on the web, crawls 20 billion sites a day and processes 100 billion searches every month.”

Our Future: The Web of Things

Speaker: Duane Forrester, Bing Senior Product Manager

Discover:

How social behavior impacts search results
How the digital universe is expanding through entities and actions.
How to create and curate content … offline.

Quotable moment: “Search continues to evolve. New devices demand different search experiences other than links. The ability for these devices to feed in real time signals help us handle intent better and therefore can provide a more tailored experience.”

Everything I Need to Know About Marketing I Learned Playing Dungeons and Dragons

Speaker: Ian Lurie, Founder and CEO of Portent

He notes:

There is a lot of valuable information to be gleaned from analyzing on-site search data, Facebook interests, Amazon product searches and Followerwonk.
Content is your first product, so you should invest in it.
The data you focus on should be the relevant data — don’t get distracted by irrelevant data.

Quotable moment: “People selling links by the thousands are sending businesses straight into the wood chipper. Marketing is one of the most powerful forms of communication and it’s only going to become more influential and prevalent. He invites marketers to do chaotic good.”

Top 10 Things You Need to Know About People

Speaker: Susan Weinschenk, Director of The Weinschenk Institute (and author of How to Get People to Do Stuff: Master the Art and Science of Persuasion and Motivation)

She reveals:

People have mental models of how things should work, and your design should reflect and understanding of those models.
There are two systems of thinking, and system 2 — which we utilize 80 percent of the time — is intuitive and fast.
People are more motivated by fear of loss than anticipation of gain.

Quotable moment: “People use peripheral vision to get the gist … Don’t discount stuff on the edges of the screen. That can be an important part of the design as you’re trying to get across a certain feeling or message.”

10 Tips for Marketing Your Business on Pinterest

Speaker: Janet Thaeler, Co-Found of Pinalerts and author of I Need a Killer Press Release

She shares:

It’s better to create a business account than a personal account because you can wield analytics. If you already have a personal account, you can transfer it to a business account.
If you have a physical product and put a $ in the description, the item will show up in the gifts category of Pinterest.
Her favorite Pinterest tools: PicMonkey, Pin Alerts, ViralTag and #pinchat.

Quotable moment: “The main demographic for Pinterest is MOMs! Moms are smart, economically-savvy women who are leading technology usage. They are power sharers if they love your product, they are an excellent demographic — 75% of women say they are making the primary decisions for the household.”

Co-blogged with Wendy Roe.

How to Get People to Do Stuff

Speaker: Susan Weinschenk, Director of The Weinschenk Institute (and author of How to Get People to Do Stuff)

She points out:

Calls-to-action are more compelling if presented as a noun rather than a verb, i.e. those that define the person. “Be a Voter,” “Be a Participant,” “Be a Commenter” are more effective “Vote,” “Participate,” “Comment.”
Creating habits can happen rapidly (in much less time than the three months that are typically touted). The trick is implementing a new habit to interfere with the previous habit.
People gravitate toward tasks that require special knowledge and skills, offer autonomy or provide lots of objective feedback.

Quotable moment: “People process info best in story format. The term used in research is ‘narrative.’ The other way stories are important are self stories. We tell ourselves stories about who we are and why we do what we do. They are powerful moderators of behavior.”

Co-blogged with Wendy Roe.

How to Create Immortal Content/Scaling Quality

Speakers: Ben Cook, Owner of Direct Match Media, and Michael King, Director of Inbound Marketing at iAcquire

They noted:

Content should be shareable — ask people to share, make sharing a call-to-action, provide quotes to tweet, provide thumbnails for Facebook, provide embed codes and only include the buttons your audience will use.
There are many different kinds of content, and they work differently at different times in the conversion funnel.
There’s nothing wrong with outsourcing content creation.

Quotable moment: “Over time content marketing has a lower cost per lead (CPL) than paid search. At the same time, you’ll get more leads for the same spend with content marketing compared to paid search. But today there’s no excuse for bad content. There are so many great content creators, unemployed journalists and out of school designers.”

Find all the Bend WebCAM liveblog coverage here.

The post Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient at Bend WebCAM and Liveblog Roundup appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Major Milestones for Bruce Clay and BCI

Kristi Kellogg — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 22:31:29 +0000

Happy Birthday Bruce!

Bruce Clay, Inc. would like to wish Bruce Clay a very happy birthday. BCI’s fearless leader turns 65 today, and his sense of humor is as sharp as his SEO skills — as evidenced in the fact he’s put up with office shenanigans, like this over-the-hill cake:

Bruce Clay, the SERP whisperer, turns 65 today! Happy birthday Bruce!

Getting Better with Time

Bruce is an industry thought leader credited with coining the term “SEO” itself, and as he gets older, he keeps getting better and better. His experience is unparallelled, which is why it’s no surprise BCI has been in the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies for the past seven years consecutively and represents clients like Nickelodeon, Victoria’s Secret, eBay, Toyota and MTV. The San Fernando Business Journal profiled Bruce and his myriad accomplishments earlier this month with a feature: The CEO of SEO.

A photographer from The San Fernando Business Journal takes pictures of Bruce for a a recent feature: The CEO of SEO.

Want to wish Bruce a happy birthday? Your options are many. SMX-ers, you can find him in the flesh at the Jacob K. Javits expo hall at booth #414 (where you can also find SMX livebloggers Virginia Nussey and Chelsea Adams, and other BCI team members). You can also give him a shout out on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, or just leave your well wishes in the comments!

Happy Birthday Bruce! You’re SEriOusly the man!

Cheers! The BCI Team

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100 SEO Tips and Internet Marketing Insights: Takeaways from 100 Days with Bruce Clay

Kristi Kellogg — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:58:55 +0000

About 100 days ago, I packed up my desk as a newspaper editor and joined Bruce Clay, Inc., ready to learn everything there was to know about SEO from the man who named it. After SEO training sessions and myriad research, interviews and Q&A sessions, my brain is abuzz with facts, figures and SEO tips … and since search is social, it only makes sense that I share these SEO tips!

So here they are: my top 100 SEO tips and online marketing takeaways from 100 days at BCI: on SEO, on technical matters, on content and on social media.

100 SEO Tips

The objective of SEO is to increase traffic, and ultimately conversions, by ranking very high search results based on targeted keywords. (Tweet this!)
When I explain where I work, I’ve come to discover a lot of people don’t know what SEO stands for.
There is no end to SEO; according to Bruce, if your SEO is “done” … it just means “you didn’t have enough keywords.” (Tweet this!)
There were more than 5 billion daily searches on Google in 2012.
If we can believe the memes, even Ryan Gosling cares about SEO. #HeyGirl (Tweet This!)
See SEO Tip #5.
According to a report by HubSpot, 61 percent of Internet users research products online.
That same report found that 44 percent of online shoppers begin the buying cycle by using a search engine.
Google, launched in September of 1998, had 67 percent U.S. search market share in June 2013 according to comScore.
Google owns YouTube, and nearly 100 other companies.
Google reports that 15 percent of daily search queries have never before been searched for.
When doing organic search optimization, focus on Google. And what works for Google generally works for Yahoo!, Bing and the rest of the gang.
A great first place to start your SEO campaign if you have a brick-and-mortar is to get into Google Places – it’s easy, free, and effective!
Google tailors your search results based on your history and location unless you tell it not to in your search settings.
Your goal should always be to rank on page 1 of the SERP, within the top three results. As Bruce would say, the top three results are the new page one.
Google is constantly changing its algorithm; Google Fellow Amit Singhal reports there have been more than 500 changes in a single year.
One way to manage the flow of PageRank though your site is to be strategic about internal linking, especially in global navigation.
Google doesn’t index stop words (and, but, the, an, a, etc.)
Don’t be evil. To clarify, I already knew that. But since diving into SEO, “don’t be evil” has taken on new meaning.
While we “optimize” in America, they “optimise” in Australia.
70% of the links search users click are organic results, according to Search Engine Journal.
Using “two” vs. “2” in a headline can affect your click-through rate.
Everything seems to have a TLA, or three-letter acronym: SEO, SMM, SEM, PPC, ROI, XML, API, URL, FTP, EMD, B2B, B2C, CRM, LSI, KPI, CPA, BBM, CTR, RSS, SEJ, SMX …
And speaking of SMX, the takeaways from last month’s SMX Advanced were many and mighty.
If you missed out on SMX Advanced, no worries! SMX East hits NYC Oct. 1-3. The super early bird rate closes on July 27 (tomorrow!), so register now if you’re planning to go! You can also use the Bruce Clay discount code to save an additional 10 percent: WS-BC10.
If your website can get paid search results on the same page as organic search results, there is often an amplifying effect. A notable case study showed that “the total revenue generated by combining SEO and PPC together yielded a profit over 27 percent higher than SEO alone.”
And speaking of PPC, negative keywords aren’t pejoratives, as one (like my former self) might think. Negative keywords refer to keywords that a PPC campaign manager does not want his ad to display. For example, if you were targeting VW bugs, but you only sold red bugs, then black, silver and white, etc. would all be negative keywords.
Browsers are biased by location and history, unless users take pains to adjust their settings. This means all SERPs are not created equal, and complicates the job of an SEO. Sigh.
Bruce Clay’s method of SEO works just as successfully in India as it does in the U.S.
“Panda” and “Penguin” no longer only signify cute little animals.
Google likes to play pranks on April 1st. Since 2000, they have unleashed havoc (albeit harmless) onto the web. 2013 pranks included treasure mode for Google Maps, the ability to search for smells and an all new form of Gmail — Gmail Blue. It’s Gmail, only bluer — inspired by the blue that comes from nature.
Distinguished Google Webmaster Matt Cutts is awesome. His genius knows no bounds, his personality is delightful and his videos are always filled with critical SEO tips. I have tweeted so many pictures and quotes from him, in fact, that my ever-curious mother recently asked “do you have a crush on that man all over your Twitter?” It took all of five seconds for me to figure out who she was talking about. And Mom, if you’re reading this and want to know who I have a crush on, see No. 5. #FanGirl
Sites should be optimized for mobile traffic. Google’s recommended configuration for mobile optimization is responsive design.
The average SEOToolSet user has 74 keywords.
You should never, ever, ever, EVER, ever — no matter what — buy links. You should earn them :)
Everyone has a weakest link — find your weakest link, and get rid of it. And keep repeating until your link profile is as near perfect as it can be.
There is a 112 percent year-over-year increase in the demand for SEO professionals.
“Above the fold” refers to the section of a site that is visible without scrolling. The term comes from that long ago time when people read things in print and the top stories appeared on the upper half of the newspaper’s (folded) front page.
“It is not the job of search engine optimization to make a pig fly. It is the job of the SEO to genetically re-engineer the website so that it becomes an eagle.” Words of wisdom from Bruce.

SEO tips for technical matters …
Opinions on keyword density vary, but it’s worth it to note that our general guideline at BCI is to use implement keywords below 7% of copy.
Google will cut off your Meta Description at around 156 characters, so craft it accordingly.
A good general guideline for Title tags is that they consist of should be 6-12 words — no more than 70 characters.
It is also recommended that no word be used more than twice in a Title tag.
Both your Title tag and your Meta Description should contain high-priority keywords.
If you have a strong brand, consider putting your brand name at the beginning of your Title tag, which can increase your CTR through brand recognition and trust. If you’re in the process of building your brand, you can put your brand name (or brand name domain) at the end of the Title tag.
Bruce advocates the use of the Meta Keywords tags; keyword phrases should be separated by commas, with the first letter of every word capitalized. There should be no more than 48 keyword phrases.
All web pages should have an
tag. The
tag should summarize the content of the page as a whole, be similar to the page title and, as always, should utilize keywords. Heading tags should be less than six words.
You should always include an ALT attribute on your images, as it can reinforce the targeted keywords/subject of your page, and is also deemed necessary in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ALT attribute should not exceed 12 words.
Use a Meta Robots tag in the Head section of every page to tell a search engine your preference for crawling and indexing individual pages.
Every site should include an HTML Sitemap.
Using XHTML has no SEO benefit, although is a cleaner and more logical form of code. It also conforms to XML. Well-formatted XHTML documents can be more easily transferred to mobile and tablets.
How many words of content should your landing page have? Consider the intent and subject of the page, your audiences expectations and needs from the page, and how many words similar pages on competitors’ sites have.
The anchor text of a link should provide a description (or promise) of the page it will redirect to.
It’s also best if link anchor text contain no more than four words.
When it comes to links, placement matters. A link in the middle of a paragraph carries more value than a link on the side or bottom of a page, and a link at the top of a page is stronger than a link at the bottom.
Links from an image pass less link value than links from text.
To make a line into your text (like the one directly below), include
in your HTML. Bam.

SEO tips for quality content …
SEO “is becoming much more content-centric,” according to Bruce. And he should know. He’s writing the authoritative book on content marketing with digital marketer Murray Newlands.
See SEO Tip #57.
When creating content, make it compelling. Matt Cutts’ biggest advice at SMX Advanced was, in fact, to make content compelling and focus on the user).
Keyword research helps you strategically create your headline. Use a keyword research tool to figure out exact search terms are being used that relate to your article or content and tailor your headline to match up with the search query that has the largest traffic volume.
A blog is primarily an awareness channel that will lead to micro-conversions, such as social sharing, page visiting, etc. These micro-conversions are important, because they keep you at the front of a customer’s mind when they need the product or service you offer.
According to Search Engine Journal, “companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages. And companies with more indexed pages get far more leads.”
The writing style of any piece of content should be tailored to sensibilities of its audience.
A good general guideline for blog post length is between 400-600 words.
End a blog post with a call to action to get readers to continue to engage or interact with your business.
Your goal should be to “publish the right content in the right place at the right time,” as they say at HubSpot.
It is your best interest to implement Google Authorship, allowing content producers to identify and claim articles, posts or any other content you’ve created. Those with verified Google Authorship also get an Authorship snippet in the SERP, which is a CTR magnet.
In short … content is king.

SEO tips for visual engagement …
Graphics are queen.
Adding graphics increases your CTR. Be visually engaging!
There are plenty of free stock images online. You can use these images to create graphic-text mash-ups for your social media channels that will boost traffic to your site or blog.
Pixlr is an amazing (and free!) tool for modifying and adding to your graphics.
Infographics are worthwhile. Quality infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than text articles.
There’s an infographic that fits your business and audience and you can find it if you do take the time to strategize and brainstorm.
Once the infographic is created, it’s time to deliver a huge push across all your social media platforms. I mean, you want your infographic to go viral, don’t you?
Piktochart is a free tool that let’s you create an amazing infographic all on your own.
When it comes to design, it’s better to use no more than two fonts.
Another design best practice is to use contrasting colors to create a strikingly vivid visual.
Different colors lead your consumers to experience different emotions.

SEO tips for social media …
As content marketer Tom Fishburne says, “Technology can’t save boring content–but it can amplify good content.”
All that work you’ve done to optimize your site is something you want to show off, right? And not just in the SERP, but across social media platforms, as well. Every business is different. What social networks are your consumers on? You should be there, too, linking to your site and issuing calls to action!
Social media has become a news source in its own right.
Social media is not an optimization-free space. Just as you optimize a standard web page, you can optimize an individual profile or business page.
LinkedIn profiles can be optimized for search.
Facebook Pages can be optimized for search.
Google+ can be optimized for search (starting to see a trend?).
If were obsessed with grades in school, than you’ll love Klout — which essentially provides your social media grade. Klout aggregates all your social media profiles — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr and more.
Fun fact: if you have a score of 63 or above on Klout, you are in the top five percent. You can imagine what score, then, I’m obviously trying to get to.
Together, Buffer and Tweriod help you determine what time to tweet, noting when your unique group of followers is most active.
The recently launched Twitter Analytics allow you to track your tweets’ success (parsing out favorites, retweets and replies), as well as your daily follows and unfollows.
Hashtags get your content in front of the new followers. It is definitely in your best interest to use hashtags strategically, as they are what bring brands and users together.
You can monitor who is unfollowing you via Qwitter. Can you leverage this information in any way? Not really. But at least you know. And if you’re a touch obsessive (see No. 87), you like to know.
According to Dan Zarrella (the social media scientist), the ten most retweetable words are: you, Twitter, please, retweet, post, blog, social, free, media and help.
More fast facts from Dan Zarrella: retweets that mention Twitter are more likely to be retweeted again; retweets that contain a self-reference are less likely to be retweeted; and simply asking for a retweet can boost a tweet’s … ahem … retweet-ability. #MakeUpAWord
Justin Bieber has the largest Twitter following. Katy Perry is in second place, Lady Gaga is in third place … and President Barack Obama is in fourth.
Twitter chats, which center around more topics than you’d imagine (including SEO and SMM) are a great place to network, learn and share. Find out what chats you might be interested in via the Twitter Chat master schedule.
Since 2004, Facebook has acquired 18 companies.
There are 225 million users on LinkedIn.
There are 3 million company pages on LinkedIn.
You can now add rich media (images, videos and links) to your LinkedIn profile, which is yet another way you can optimize your profile and make it stand out — I mean, if showing up in a search is your thing.
There’s still a lot more to learn about SEO (see No. 3).

Want more SEO tips? Follow @KristiKellogg for all the SEO tips you could ever want, plus choice Ryan Gosling memes.

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Best of Search Conferences 2011: Day 3

Jessica Lee — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:05:32 +0000

Day 3 of our “Best of Search Conferences 2011” is upon us, and this post wraps up the series here on our blog. Looking through the coverage, one thing we can say for certain is that there are a ton of enthusiastic, brilliant people in the search marketing community who have a passion for sharing ideas. Thanks to all of them, and special thanks to the conference producers who offer a vehicle for these people to share knowledge with the community. Today’s Day 3 coverage is all about exploring thought-provoking topics in the areas of understanding your audience, holistic marketing, online reputation management and branding, plus cutting-edge topics from this year’s search marketing events. Check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you happened to miss them. And, here we go!

Keynote

SEOs Get Social – Wappow Hawaii
Speaker: Bruce Clay

Top Takeaways:

The evolution of search has progressed from being 10 blue links on a search engine results page (in the beginning) to behavioral and personalized search for a better user experience. Google now tries to determine the most relevant results based on prior search history, and social search is the next wave of personalization.
It’s becoming harder as SEOs to report rankings when behavioral search comes into play. Bruce Clay, Inc. has found the Google API to be inaccurate. Predictions are that Google is going to dominate the SERPs at an individual level, personalized to each searcher, and confuse the user to the point where he/she will not know whether it’s organic or paid results.
In the social search world, there are many factors that remove fear, uncertainty and doubt in shoppers and make people accountable for the content they share. Review sites move shoppers to buyers; social sharing of content makes a person more careful with what they endorse – bad content does not get links, good content does. If we are socially involved, and do it right, the links will come.
Social media communities feed people better than just “alerts”; there’s an increase in people who prefer social media for information consumption over browsing. Almost half of the people who access social media sites do so via mobile. And it’s not that people are spending more time on mobile; it’s time they wouldn’t spend on a computer that they are now spending on their phones.
Some social media signals for ranking include: authority of the sharer, how quickly and how often the content is shared; the share text (what it says); what personas are doing what sharing; and the concept that Facebook“ likes” are the new links in search.

Video shared at the Wappow Hawaii keynote:

Understanding Audience

Top Takeaways:

When building a social media community for a brand, listen to the community and the customers before coming up with a strategy. They might want something totally different in a community than what is being provided. It’s important to do an assessment of the brand, the industry and the conversation surrounding it first.
For search and the U.S. Hispanic audience, blend offline efforts with online search marketing; studies show more than 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic audience searches for more information from something they saw on TV – with Google being the favorite search engine. And mobile search is big within this community. Use Google Insights to compare Spanish queries to the general market to find opportunities.
Analytics tips for the Latino audience includes using needs-based segmentation – security, power, esteem, change, for example – which is harder and less obvious to target than language segmentation. Use psychographics profiles for online purchasing segments to figure out who the real decision makers are and reduce assumptions about the audience. Allow for Web navigation and ads in both Spanish and English to reach this market.
Personas are an important part of the search marketing process; there’s a difference between a searcher persona and a product persona, and one person can morph into different personas throughout the cycle of a search. Personal data mixed with keyword data (how the person searches online) creates the ultimate persona. Know what your business goals are before the SEO strategy in order to best tap into personas.

Best of Conference Posts on Understanding Audience

Building Communities – Wappow Hawaii
Speaker: L.P. Neenz Faleafine
Focus Latino – SES New York
Keynote speaker: Mark Lopez
Analytics for the Latino Markets – SES New York
Panelists: Fernando Rodriguez, Paul Lima, Armando Rodriguez
Use Searcher Personas to Connect SEO to Conversion – SMX Advanced
Panelists: Tamara Adlin , Vanessa Fox, Dennis Goedegebuure

Holistic Marketing

Top Takeaways:

Don’t chase the newest, shiny toys in search marketing. You need a mix of tactics, but content is where you need to put your efforts to be successful. Approach search, social and content with the audience’s needs and preferences in mind to secure wins. Produce content that fulfills all areas of the buy cycle that any given audience goes through so no opportunities are missed. Start thinking like a publisher to be good at content marketing.
The evolution of Internet marketing has left us to believe that it’s not about what’s happening on websites anymore – it’s what’s happening outside of them in social networks that matters. But, not everyone has time for social media upkeep, so apply an 80/20 rule – 80 percent automation and 20 percent personalization. You can do this with the right tools and strategy.
Facebook use spans international borders, with 70 percent of Facebook use outside the U.S. This presents a vast opportunity for marketing globally through Facebook. Other tips for sharing information and content in a social world includes creating a digital cloud around your connections, then your connections’ connections and so on, and use this to create the strategy to help decide what headlines, language and images to include, for example.
In mobile search, trends uncover opportunities for mobile marketing, including what people are looking to accomplish when using their mobile devices to do something online. This includes marketing for the location of the user and the time of day for relevancy; allowing the user to complete a task easily; and giving the user opportunity to save money through mobile offers.

Best of Conference Posts on Holistic Marketing

The Convergence of Search, Social and Content Marketing – SES San Francisco
Speakers: Aaron Kahlow, Arnie Kuhn, Lee Odden
Facebook, Twitter and SEO – SMX East
Speakers: Horst Joepen, Jim Yu, Michael Gray
Global Opportunities in PR, Social Media and Mobile – SES San Francisco
Speakers: Anne F. Kennedy, Kristjan Mar Hauksson
Mobile Apps and How They’re Revolutionizing Search – SMX West
Speakers: Andy Chu, Anil Panguluri, Angie Schottmuller

Online Reputation Management and Branding

Top Takeaways:

Use search to protect a brand’s presence online by applying what’s called search engine reputation management. This includes using traditional search marketing tactics to create strategies that will create an online experience that’s synonymous with the brand.
SEOs and user experience engineers now have to work more closely than ever before to survive Google’s mission to make search better for users. To figure out what metrics matter to Google, put yourself in the shoes of Google, this likely includes things like the Google G-Bounce rate (return to the search result and then the following actions as well), query behavior after a G-Bounce, average time before a G-Bounce, click-through rates and repeat visits.
To create a social media program that works and protects the reputation for large companies, there needs to be a training and on-boarding process that starts with defining what social media is to that company and how it fits into the brand, and refresh the training annually, ensuring it goes to employees, partners, vendors and execs.
White Hat SEO builds marketing value because it’s aimed at creating a strategy that fulfills intent. Many Black Hat SEO tactics can be transformed into White Hat tactics; it just takes some fresh perspective to eliminate the risk factor and turn it into something that provides lasting value.

Best of Conference Posts on Online Reputation Management and Branding

Protecting Your Brand Online – SES San Francisco
Speaker: Andy Beal
Google Survivor Tips – SMX East
Speakers: Mark Monroe, Alan Bleiweiss, Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Socially Satisfied – Wappow Hawaii
Speaker: Becky Carroll
Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO – SMX Sydney
Speaker: Rand Fishkin

The Cutting Edge

Top Takeaways:

Mobile barcodes (QR codes) present an opportunity to track things we may not have been able to before, like print media, and it also gives opportunity to blend online and offline efforts. A good QR campaign serves a business objective, creates a valuable user experience and provides contextual assistance around the campaign, so users know exactly what to do and how.
This year, Bing rolled out adaptive search, which is essentially behavioral search on crack [those are my words – Jessica]; it learns from a user’s behavior beyond just one search session. But personalized search does not mean SEO is dead. On the contrary, it makes the SEO’s job easier. See, a business doesn’t have to be the “best” at one thing; it just has to be the most relevant for the query and who is looking for it.
The main language of the Web is HTML. With the advent of HTML5, it goes hand-in-hand with what people are doing, seeing and wanting from the Web. And search engines like Google are totally behind it. HTML5 is usable, but don’t be afraid to experiment and fail – it’s still a work in progress – but there are many benefits to implementing it.
Daily deals companies are growing in numbers, but they aren’t as profitable as one might think. In order to make a daily deal offer work as part of the marketing plan, there are some things beyond the deal that should happen. Because the purchase is at a low margin by the customer initially, it requires high customer lifetime value to make up for that initial purchase. To help this along, offer a quality product people will want to come back for, and use aggressive social marketing to retain those customers.

Best of Conference Posts on Cutting Edge Topics

Search on Mobile Devices, QR Codes, Mobile and Social: The Next Frontier – SES San Francisco
Speakers: Terry Rodrigues, Angie Schottmuller
The Current State of Personalize Search – SMX East
Speakers: Jack Menzel, Stefan Weitz
HTML5: A Cowpath on a Cliff – SES San Francisco
Speaker: Karl Dubost
Doing Offers Right – SMX East
Speakers: Dan Hess, Jim Moran, Prashant Puri, Benny Blum

Live Conference Episode of SEM Synergy

Search and Social Converge – Wappow Hawaii
Host and co-host: Bruce Clay, Jessica Lee
Guests: Gillian Muessig, Ian Lurie

Top Takeaways:

Social media signals allow for the greater personalization of search, and the confusion surrounding ambiguous queries has been alleviated, as have many ad-targeting problems.
Rankings in the search engine results pages are affected by social signals as well as click-through rates, with reports showing Google +1s displayed alongside results have been shown to impact it.
Google will be using social media as part of an ever-developing way to make sure results are becoming more and more relevant to users.
While many Web marketers have been using social media marketing for some time, the understanding and adaptation of it across big and small businesses alike still has a ways to go. The good news is, social media marketing used to be considered a soft science, but is now measured in terms of ROI with hard-number values assigned to it.
Looking at social media as if it were something totally new and unmanageable can make it seem more intimidating than it needs to be. The truth is, social media is just an evolution of the way people have been marketing for years, but now allows a two-way conversation between a business and its audience.

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Panda Updates: Content Quality, Link Profile or User Behavior? ━ SEM Synergy Extras

Virginia Nussey — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:22:08 +0000

An interesting debate went down in Bruce’s office last week. Usually, discussions about factors that underlie SEO strategy go on behind closed doors and away from outsiders’ ears, but not this time. On today’s episode of SEM Synergy, Bruce, Jess and I postulate what could be the target of the Panda Updates, Google’s most public actions to improve the quality of its organic search results. Excerpts from the show follow.

Jessica: I was reading a post on Search Engine Land and it said that Perez Hilton’s site actually was improved, the rankings, after this Panda 2.5. Do you know Perez Hilton? He’s like this celebrity gossip person. I took a look at his site and I’m really trying to figure out, what is it that Google thinks is quality about this site. There’s lots of ads on it. The content ranges everywhere from a post that’s like 100 words to a post that’s like 900 words, but it’s not written at quality by what our standards would be. There’s Meta information there but it’s kind of sloppy. I’m wondering if it’s really just that you have to dot your Is and cross your Ts and make sure you have all these elements there, versus it actually being quality. I mean, is it quality because people are engaging in it? Is that it?

Virginia: I bet there’s a lot of comments on those posts, right?

J: There are some comments. And actually I didn’t dig into the comments very much, but he has a huge following so I’m sure he has a lot of traffic. I don’t know. What are your thoughts?

Bruce: First, it would warrant research. But if I understand the site correctly, and I don’t read it so I don’t really study it, but what is the quality of the people who link to him.

V: It’s like the most famous gossip blog. So he would get the best quality in that field that you could think of.

B: If that’s what’s it’s about. I think that if you look at nutrition it has it’s own set of quality standards. If you look at sports it has different quality standards. If you look at art it has different quality standards. I think that it isn’t a single set of measurements. I think that we have to look at every category as it’s own category, and then determine whether or not the entire network – not just his words and not just the comments – but the network that is engaged, is it a quality network?

I think Google has expanded beyond the site. If that’s right, then certainly, a lot of Panda impact can be manipulated, if you will, by only having quality people link to you. The problem is that a lot of the sites that I saw that were penalized in this latest release and prior’s, it isn’t even so much whether the words are arguably worse than everybody else’s words, or whether it’s too cookie-cutter. That wasn’t really where I saw the big difference. I saw the difference as a site-wide analysis: is there deep linking and are people linking to you that are reputable.

V: When I was at the Google Survivor Tips session at SMX East it was all about analyzing the changes from Panda, who survived, who got thrown off the front page. And the interesting thing was that it goes beyond who’s linking, who’s reading what the words are, to how are users interacting with your page. Are they clicking through the result but only to bounce back, and in how long of a time? And it’s looking at is this user going to your site often? He called it a Google bounce, as opposed to a regular bounce, query behavior after the Google bounce? If they come back, what do they refine their search as? It’s taking consideration of your site and people’s interactions as a whole.

B: When I hear things like that, and maybe it’s just me, but I think a lot of interaction on the top sites is by type in. I think a lot of the interaction is in response to an email or some sort of an alert that comes outside of the Google world. I think that Google doesn’t have visibility to all of that information. I think a lot of the top sites, especially brands aren’t even running a Google Analytics type tool. I don’t think Google has visibility to definitively answer the question of bounce.

Now, if I go to search to find it, if I’m stumbling through results and I find a site…

V: That’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about through search.

B: Right, and even in search, how many searches are there a day and how are they going to sort it out and how are they going to figure out total amount of time on a website? I mean it isn’t enough that somebody click-through.

V: If all of a sudden you’re back to that page, they recognize a bounce back. And even things like how Bing has a new adaptive search, they’re not looking just at previous query, they’re looking at series of queries. I think it would actually fit in really well with your review of Perez Hilton. Because people are saying [with regards to the Panda Updates] avoid things that will annoy your user like ads or that kind of stuff. But that’s a site that’s stuffed full of ads. The content is thin at best sometimes. But, if people are regular gossip readers and they’re always typing in Perez Hilton, if they’re using navigational searches to get there, and they’re leaving lots of comments, something like that, it does seem to support this idea of engagement with a site.

J: And one of the losers [of the most recent Panda Update] was PR Newswire. They have a ton of content and it’s probably written better than Perez Hilton’s but it’s just press releases. So people go there to read the press release and then they go away. Right?

B: In theory. I would think there wouldn’t be as much engagement. But we’ve been talking engagement for a very, very long time. Unless Google suddenly just turned up the dial on engagement as being a major factor recently to determine quality, not to determine value – and maybe it’s more of a value statement than a quality statement. You can end up with a site that doesn’t have much on it but everybody goes there, therefore it’s an important site.

J: Do you remember last week at Search and Social when Ian had that presentation where he did some research – Ian Lurie from Portent Int. – that the level of engagement between a social network, a brand and its users actually affected rankings, not how many people were on there.

B: I think that one thing is true: there’s a lot of factors and Google isn’t going to tell us. And we’re going to have to figure it out one step at a time. I personally think that one of the easiest things for us to do is determine if our network of interconnectivity is of value. I think we can determine whether or not or content is clearly spam-like – I mean we all know spam when we see it – if we don’t think it’s spam, as long as we’re not blind to our own content I think we can make it better. And certainly, there’s no reason why we just can’t improve the overall quality of our site.

No question we all agree on that – Google wants to provide the best results, and we want our sites to be the best for our consumers. But the question of what Google is using to determine what sites are considered of good quality or not warrants thoughtful consideration. And that’s exactly what happened in the chat room during the show today. You weren’t in the WebmasterRadio.fm chat at noon Pacific? Why on earth not? Okay, we forgive you (this time), but look at the collegial discourse and shared experience you were missing out on. (Conversation edited for content, brevity and clarity.)

bryantdunivan: someone finally brought up perez’s increase

JessicaLee: Yeah, bryantdunivan, weird, huh

bryantdunivan: it makes no sense because his stories are recycled from other sources and his benefit is almost like IBLS [inbound links] and off-page [factors] can out weigh a panda bear

Virginia: so you think panda is link related?

bryantdunivan: i think thats where panda loses out. if you are heavily linked in panda hit sites, you go down, because the links are devalued. but with him, theres no content spinning from his stuff, no real syndication, so he’s seen as reputable in that way. quality is made on the site

JessicaLee: But what does the SE have to compare it against?

bryantdunivan: human generated content. i think thats where google panda falls short. it tries to make an algo to determine writing quality, but tries to put all the sites to the same thing. humans don’t write the same, so there will be natural variation for content. thats why we are seeing (still) so many false positives, including perez. but i think somehow your link graph can maybe out weigh the panda

Virginia: ok, *that’s* where links come in

bryantdunivan: i think google is thinking (maybe?) that x people link to him, so regardless of written quality hes a reputable source to x people

MLowery: That’s a valid point. And despite his gossipy, low-quality content, he’s managed to cultivate contacts in a lot of more reputable outlets, like People magazine, etc., so that adds an element of trust, I think.

bryantdunivan: right. pandas all about “better results” so it makes sense in that way too

Do you think we’re on the right track as far as the intended target of Google’s Panda Update and the factors it’s using to determine website quality? Please, join the conversation!

The post Panda Updates: Content Quality, Link Profile or User Behavior? ━ SEM Synergy Extras appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

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Top 10 SEO FAQs Answered by Bruce Clay

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Happy 25th Anniversary, Bruce Clay Inc.! Find Out How It All Started…

The year was 1996 … how did you get started?

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Tell me about the first big milestone for Bruce Clay Inc.

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What’s in store for Bruce Clay Inc.?

FAQ: What Were the Early Challenges Bruce Clay Inc. Faced in the Ever-Changing Landscape of Search Engine Optimization?

Search Expert Duane Forrester Joins Bruce Clay, Inc. as VP of Organic Search Operations to Take the Road Less Traveled

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So, the Big Question: Why BCI?

The Road Ahead

Are You Confident in Your SEO Agency?

Two Power Players Talk SEO & Social: Bruce Clay and David Amerland’s Video HOA

The Evolution of the SEO

Why Some People Think SEO is Dead

Successful SEOs are Planning 2-5 Years Ahead

The Cube Theory

Bruce Clay, Inc. Internal Structure: Education and Teamwork

The Importance of Ongoing Education

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Bruce Clay’s SEO Predictions for 2014, Google Trends and More in the SEO Newsletter

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Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient at Bend WebCAM and Liveblog Roundup

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100 SEO Tips and Internet Marketing Insights: Takeaways from 100 Days with Bruce Clay

100 SEO Tips

SEO tips for technical matters …

tag. The

tag should summarize the content of the page as a whole, be similar to the page title and, as always, should utilize keywords. Heading tags should be less than six words.

SEO tips for quality content …

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Best of Search Conferences 2011: Day 3

Keynote

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Understanding Audience

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Holistic Marketing

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Online Reputation Management and Branding

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The Cutting Edge

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Panda Updates: Content Quality, Link Profile or User Behavior? ━ SEM Synergy Extras