This is a talk given by Doug Cook, founder of Able Grape, at the 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference. In this talk I present a different view of search engine optimization for your wine blog or winery website. I discuss how people find information on the web, what the "long tail" means, and why you must understand it in order to connect with your potential audience. I define a notion of optimization that I call "search-friendliness," provide a basic overview of how to accomplish this, and outline how to be a good citizen in the search ecosystem - which ultimately means good business.

1. An Introduction to “Search-Friendliness” Doug Cook Founder, Able Grape

2. Overview Debunk a few search “myths” What is “search-friendliness”? The Long Tail and what it means “Search 101” How search engines work Implications for how you build your site Analytics Able Grape demo Q&A

3. Debunking some myths Two fictitious examples Humblevino.com: 1000 visits/day Spamovin.com: 10000 visits/day Which site is more successful?

4. Myth #1: More Traffic is Better Need more information than just traffic Humblevino.com 35% meaningful interactions Spamovin.com 2% meaningful interactions Humblevino is more successful More (350 vs 200) users engaged each day Spamovin is potentially tarnishing their brand

5. Ideal Optimization Connect with all the people who are interested in what you have to say, and nobody else Maximizes meaningful interactions I prefer the term “search-friendliness” “SEO” often has connotations of spamminess Similar analogy can be made for Twitter, Facebook, etc.

6. THE “LONG TAIL” and why you should care “I hope this talk is not too long a tale…”

7. The “Long Tail” of Search Number of Times Searched Specific Searches

8. The “Long Tail” of Search “Rare” searches = most of the area “Popular Searches” < 25% of area Number of Times Searched Specific Searches

9. The “Long Tail” of Search Robert Mondavi Cabernet Robert Mondavi (18% of total) 2004 Robert Mondavi Cabernet 2004 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Reserve Number of Times Searched 2004 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Reserve Tasting Notes Specific Searches

10. The “Long Tail” of Search Put another way, searchers are infinitely creative Even for the exact same concept, many different searches 2005 Hugel Riesling ‘05 Hugel Riesling DomaineHugel Alsace Riesling 2005 DomaineHugel et Fils AOC Alsace Riesling 2005

11. Myth #2 Myth: “People will come to my homepage and browse around to find what they want” Some people will, most won’t Mondavi example: only 18% to homepage Most people find information by very specific searches Expect these to take them directly to pertinent info Implication: your site should have this info in a “search-friendly” format

12. Myth #3 Myth: “I have to rank highly for some popular query to get lots of traffic” Don’t try to be #1 for “cabernet” Too much competition Not that much traffic Only 7.5% of all queries mentioning cabernet! It is not the traffic you want (see Myth #1) Won’t result in a “meaningful interaction” unless you truly have the best general page about Cabernet on the web Put yourself in the shoes of the searcher

13. The Long Tail: Implications Make sure you have lots of specific content on your site Wineries All wines, specific vintages, past and present, with detailed information Blogs Post often! Must be accessible to search engines Must be organized so “infinitely creative” searchers can find it

14. Search ENGINE 101 “A little knowledge can be dangerous…”

15. How a Search Engine Finds Content Crawler (robot, spider) fetches pages from the web Parses (picks apart) page, extracts the links Goes to new pages found among links, and fetches them (Lather, rinse, repeat).

16. Implications Crawler must find a link to your page Dynamic technologies (Flash, Javascript) problematic Content generated in response to user input (navigation by search/option menus) problematic Sitemaps (XML or HTML) can mitigate Crawler must be able to fetch/parse the page Flash: difficult/impossible to parse Age verification: is a crawler old enough to drink? Sites depending upon registration: bad Sites depending upon cookie from home page: bad Crawler doesn’t visit the homepage first! Blogging platforms OK, winery sites often problematic

17. How a Search Engine Searches Search Engines are not very smart! Looks for all the search terms at least once in the combined: Document body Title Inbound link text Document URL

18. Not all Text is Equal Title and inbound link text are seen as most likely description of what page is “about” Thus weighted more heavily by search engine Links are very valuable Quantity is of some interest Text of links is very important

19. Example Blog post: mrwinehead.com A Great Wine I Tasted Last night I tasted the 2007 Hugel Gewürztraminer and it was good. Click hereto read a wine review of the ‘07. Hugel’sGewürz is not bad. Mr Wine Headreviews the 2007. Hypothetical “long tail” searches: 2007 Hugel Gewürztraminer: will show up somewhere, not rank highly 2007 Hugel et Fils Alsace Gewürtztraminer: nope (But for “click here” this page will be the billionth result!)

20. Better Version: mrwinehead.com Tasted: 2007 Hugel Gewürztraminer Last night I tasted the ’07 Gewürz from DomaineHugel in Alsace, and boy, was it good. Check out a wine review of the 2007 Hügel Gewürztraminer. Hugel’sGewürz is not bad. Mr. Wine Head reviews the ’07. Hypothetical “long tail” searches: 2007 Hugel Gewürztraminer: yep 2007 DomaineHugel Alsace Gewürtztraminer: yep

21. Alternative Version: mrwinehead.com Bloggers like creative titles. You might use an internal link to be the “full, descriptive” title, giving you more flexibility with the title. Experiment, but measure your results! HugelGewürzRocks Again Last night I tasted the ’07 Gewürztraminer from DomaineHugel in Alsace, and boy, was it good. Internal Link: Check out a wine review of the 2007 Hügel Gewürztraminer. Hugel’sGewürz is not bad. Mr. Wine Head reviews the ’07. Hypothetical “long tail” searches: 2007 Hugel Gewürztraminer: yep 2007 DomaineHugel Alsace Gewürtztraminer: yep

22. So what does this mean for you? Choose your title carefully: should be complete yet concise description of topic Missing words = missed opportunity for “tail searches” But long titles have less weight, can bring irrelevant traffic When linking to others, choose your link text as you would a title for the page

23. Encourage links to your pages! Tools to ease sharing/linking (e.g. sharethis) Use social media to get visits, some visitors may link back Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg, Technorati Essential: have something unique and interesting to say

24. Analytics If you want to make something better, you must measure it

25. Analytics How do you know your changes are working? Where do you get inspiration for other changes to make? Track your traffic Where is it from? If from a search engine, what searches are they using? What pages are users visiting?

26. How do users respond to your site? Bounce rate If you double your traffic, and halve your “connect rate”… Time on site Where do your users go after the landing page? Optimizing is about learning from your users and evolving your site. NB: Google tracks these things too! Sites with high bounce rates may rank lower

27. Analytics Platforms Blogging platforms often include basic analytics Google Analytics – free, much more sophisticated. Awstats – requires access to server logs Number of commercial packages (Omniture, etc)

28. Experiment! Don’t be afraid to try things, as long as you measure the results A/B tests can be very useful Surprising things can matter Fonts, colors…

29. Summary Produce unique, useful, interesting content! Understand the implications of the long tail Make sure your pages are findable/fetchable by search engines Make sure your content, especially titles/anchors, are well-chosen Measure your results and tune