Tim Grice shares tips and strategies for getting the most out of your SEO efforts in 2012.

1. Advanced SEO Strategies 2012
Tim Grice
Head of Search, Branded3

2. High Value, Natural Link Signals
• Why in Content?
• Anchor Text Variation
• „News‟ Strategy
• Freshness
• Developing Natural Signals

3. In Content Links Work Better
• More defendable
• Less likely to be devalued
• Compliment Outreach
• More relevant

4. Anchor Text Variation
• Old advice but still under used
• Use „related searches‟ + Google Suggest
• Avoids filters and adds value

5. News Strategy
Regular Content Agree on
Updates Re-write Content
Commentary
Push Story to Publish through Incorporate
Sourced Blogs news sites Brand
Spread Story Monitor Alerts for
Syndication Through Social Link
Media Opportunities

6. Why it Works…
• Mimic‟s the natural spread of content around the
web
• Creates a natural link spike
• Brand signals work
• A natural spread of authority

7. „Fresh Rank‟
• Google wants up to date content
• A page can be deemed „fresh‟ through inbound links
• Links placed in „crawled‟ content have low value

8. Freshness Test

9. Developing Natural Signals
• Google improving link analysis
• Anchor text variation and brand
• Location of links
• Authority spread of incoming links
• Justify your links
• Targeting „high‟ metrics only, is a mistake

10. Protecting Your Site
Variation = Filter Protection

11. Anchor Text
• Decide on 10 – 15 keywords per page
• Use „Brand‟ and „Noise‟ signals
• Use the Google Keyword tool/Suggest/Related
Searches
• Helps understand the true SEO value of a page

12. Variation in Action!

13. Link Types
“It‟s not all about metrics”

14. Paid Link Profile

15. Google Panda
• Biggest Offences
> Internal duplicated content
> Cross domain duplication
> Pagination issues
> Thin pages
• SEO teams need be involved in every site update
• Panda is not a link based algorithm

16. International SEO + hreflang
• Google has issues with duplicated content across
international sites
• Consolidate page signals using the language tag
• Canonical link same language sites back to the
master domain (.com, .ie, .co.uk, .ca etc…)
• All sites benefit from the authority of the canonical
domain

17. Competitor Strategies
6 Questions to ask:-
• What type of links are they?
• What is the spread of authority?
• Which countries do the come from?
• Which sites do they publish content on?
• At what rate are they building links?
• What is their overall PR/Social Strategy?

18. The Links
• Editorial links
• Text links/Paid Links
• Banner image links
• Link Spam
• Infographics / Social Links
• Bookmarking & Forums
Always pick the better links to copy, these are the ones
with the most longevity

19. Open Site Explorer

20. Authority Spread

21. Link Location
http://blekko.com/

22. Majestic SEO
• How aggressive are competitors?
• Can you overtake them?

23. Infographics
• Use Image Search to find linking sites

24. Social Link Strategy
• What news are they syndicating?
• What link bait ideas worked & who linked to them?
• Where do they guest blog?

25. Search Metrics
• What content works best?

26. ROI + SEO
• Much more difficult than Paid Search
• Rarely develop ROI on a keyword basis
• You need to understand where your biggest
opportunities are
• Best to measure ROI on a page basis

27. Cumulative SEO Benefit
• Decide on target keywords per page
• Estimate cumulative traffic
• Use average conversion data to estimate value
• Expect to wait 12 months to break even

28. Opportunity Analysis
Conversion
Rate
Opportunity
Potential
Ranking
Traffic

29. Opportunity Analysis
• Look for relevant keywords ranking between 12 – 20
• Estimate potential traffic
• Factor in average conversion rate
• Quickest avenue to ROI
• Can use multiple API‟s to automatically process

30. Attack + Defend Strategy
• High value keywords need maintaining
• Attack terms can be moved into defence once
rankings achieved
• Less effort needed to defend keywords
• Allows you to target more terms without increasing
budgets

31. Learning More
• Read SEOwizz.net & Blogstorm.co.uk
• Email tim.grice@branded3.com for free SEO advice
or connect on Twitter @tim_grice
• Visit our website http://www.branded3.com/