Greg Go of Wise Bread presented on SEO secrets at the FINCON11 conference. He discussed Wise Bread's successful SEO strategies, including focusing on niche authority by targeting long-tail keywords, creating high-quality content, and engaging with influencers in their niche community through link building and social media. Their tactics involve in-depth articles, thorough optimization, and monitoring performance over time rather than chasing short-term gains. The key is getting relevant links to quality content from trusted sources in a consistent, steady manner.
How AI, OpenAI, and ChatGPT impact business and software.
SEO Secret of Wise Bread (FINCON11)
1. SEO Secrets of Wise Bread
Greg Go FINCON11
Wise Bread Chicago, October 1-2, 2011
2. Agenda
I. Introduction
II. SEO Overview & Best Practices
III. Wise Bread’s SEO Mentality
IV. Day-to-Day Tactics
V. Tools We Actually Use
VI. Q&A
Slides, links, notes at www.wisebread.com/fincon11
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3. Wise Bread’s SEO Credentials
• 570,000 monthly Google referrals.
Search traffic = 54% of all Wise Bread traffic
• Rank in top 20 for 17,000 keywords.
credit card guide, frugal living, change your life, best personal
finance blogs, best ways to save money, credit karma
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4. About Greg
• Wise Bread co-founder and tech lead.
• About.com Guide to Online Business (’07-’08).
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6. Keyword Markets
credit cards
personal finance
20 something savings accounts
finance for college students
saving money
recipes
homemade
orange chicken
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7. Keywords to Target
1. Plenty of traffic.
2. Easy to beat competition.
3. High value readers.
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8. Can I Beat Top 10 Results?
Search Volume Search Results Ranking Value / CPC
(Google) Difficulty
Keyword (Google) (AdWords)
(SEOmoz)
credit card 16,600,000 682m 81 $4.72
credit card college 301,000 443m 60 $6.87
credit card college 11,000 192m 46 $8.39+
first card
SEOmoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool:
1. Who are the top 10 results?
2. Who links to them?
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9. Takeaway #1: Be a Niche Authority
credit cards You?
personal finance
20 something savings accounts
finance for college students
saving money
recipes
homemade
orange chicken
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10. What’s a High-Quality Site?
• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other
pages in search results?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine,
encyclopedia or book?
All 23 questions:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
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11. FINCON11, Chicago
11 SEO Secrets of Wise Bread
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After Google’s “Panda” Update
12. Takeaway #2: Think Long Term
Wise Bread lifetime search traffic
Consistent quality > Perfect tactics
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14. Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook
Big Picture Strategy Day-to-Day Tactics
1. Always be link building. 1. Magazine quality articles.
2. Engage the sphere. 2. Article checklist.
3. Slow and steady. 3. Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.
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15. Wise Bread’s Strategy
1. Always be link building.
• From high quality sites that are bigger, more influential, niche
authorities, etc.
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16. Some Regular PF Roundups
• PT Money • The Simple Dollar
Weekend Link Roundup Weekly Roundup
• Wise Bread • Budgets Are Sexy
Best Money Tips Weekly Roundup
• Get Rich Slowly • Financial Highway
Spare Change Weekly Review
• Money Crashers • Sweating the Big Stuff
Personal Finance Roundup Best of the Rest
• Moolanomy • Green Panda Tree House
Personal Finance Roundup What’s Cool Around the Web
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17. Wise Bread’s Strategy
1. Always be link building.
2. Engage the sphere.
• Find and engage niche authorities (thought leaders, subject matter
experts, influential personalities, passionate rising stars, etc).
• Make sure everyone knows us.
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18. Engage Anywhere and Everywhere
Weekly twitter chat at #wbchat
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19. Takeaway #3: Social Media = SEO
LifeRemix by
@GlenStansberry
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20. Wise Bread’s Strategy
1. Always be link building.
2. Engage the sphere.
3. Slow and steady.
• Be cautious. Move slowly. Beware of fads.
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21. Don’t Panic!
Wise Bread lifetime search traffic
Look at those peaks and valleys.
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22. Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook
Big Picture Strategy Day-to-Day Tactics
1. Always be link building. 1. Magazine quality articles.
2. Engage the sphere. 2. Article checklist.
3. Slow and steady. 3. Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.
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23. Wise Bread’s Tactics
1. Magazine quality articles.
• “Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine,
encyclopedia or book?”
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24. Magazine Quality Content
• 800-1,000 words
• Long enough to be authoritative.
• Short enough to be built upon with related articles.
• Pretty picture.
• In-depth Flickr search is worth the time.
• Editing is more important than writing.
• Formatting matters to bots: <h1> <h2> <strong> <em> <a>
• Typos matter to human readers.
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25. Wise Bread’s Tactics
1. Magazine quality articles.
2. Article checklist.
• Help readers and search engines understand.
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26. Article Checklist
Places for Keywords Editorial Considerations
Article Title (<h1> tag) Authority
Page Title (<title> tag) Readability
Meta Description Categories & Tags
URL Links out – related articles.
H-headings, bold, italics Links in – update related old posts.
<img> “alt” and “title” properties
<a> “title” property
Tip! Mix up keywords. Use related phrases.
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27. Wise Bread’s Tactics
1. Magazine quality articles.
2. Article checklist.
3. Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.
• Questions we ask. Tools we use.
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28. Tools We Actually Use
• Research • Monitoring
• SEOmoz • Google Analytics
• Open Site Explorer • Mint
• KW Difficulty Tool • Sitemeter
• SEMRush • CrazyEgg
• Google • Facebook Insights
• Search Results • Klout
• AdWords
• Wise 1000
• (fka Wise Bread’s Top PF
Blogs)
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29. SEMRush – Blog’s Best Rankings
This blog is an authority on… ?
http://www.semrush.com/info/fiscalgeek.com
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32. Action Item
Work the list. Get a link from every relevant, high-quality blog.
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33. Questions?
• What SEO mistakes have you made?
• How much time do you spend on SEO? (As a
percentage of your effort.)
• Do link exchanges work?
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34. The End – Thanks!
Slides, links, notes
• wisebread.com/fincon11
Get the Entire Playbook
• Advanced Blog Monetization
– Lynn Truong
• 1 Million Page Views on a Small Budget
– Will Chen
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Hinweis der Redaktion
None of these are technical specs.
So much unnecessary stress
One conversation at a time. Before and after getting a link.
So much unnecessary stress
Beware “keyword stuffing” and over-optimization. Tip -- Mix up keywords. Remember the “mid-size keyword markets” table?
SEMrush is tool for checking out the good rankings of competitors.