secrets of wise bread seo by greg go

SEO Secrets of Wise Bread

Greg Go Wise Bread

FINCON11 Chicago, October 1-2, 2011

SEO Secrets of Wise Bread FINCON11, Chicago

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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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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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About Greg

•  Wise Bread co-founder and tech lead.

•  About.com Guide to Online Business (’07-’08).

The Secret

Get relevant links to high quality content from trusted authorities.


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Keyword Markets

personal finance

saving money recipes

homemade orange chicken

credit cards

20 something finance

savings accounts for college students


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Keywords to Target

1.  Plenty of traffic.

2.  Easy to beat competition.

3.  High value readers.


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Can I Beat Top 10 Results? Keyword

Search Volume (Google)

Search Results

(Google)

Ranking Difficulty

(SEOmoz)

Value / CPC (AdWords)

credit card 16,600,000 682m 81 $4.72

credit card college 301,000 443m 60 $6.87

credit card college first card

11,000 192m 46 $8.39+

SEOmoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool: 1.  Who are the top 10 results? 2.  Who links to them?


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Takeaway #1: Be a Niche Authority

personal finance

saving money recipes

credit cards

20 something finance

savings accounts for college students

You?

homemade orange chicken


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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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After Google’s “Panda” Update

300k

350k

400k

450k

500k

550k

600k

Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug

Google Search Referrals

Quarter

Google Referrals

Q/Q Change

Dec – Feb 994k

Mar – May 1,310k +31%

Jun – Aug 1,629k +24%

Panda update 2/24/11


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Takeaway #2: Think Long Term

Consistent quality > Perfect tactics

Wise Bread lifetime search traffic

Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook Strategy, Tactics, Tools


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Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook

Big Picture Strategy 1.  Always be link building. 2.  Engage the sphere. 3.  Slow and steady.

Day-to-Day Tactics 1.  Magazine quality articles. 2.  Article checklist. 3.  Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.


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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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Some Regular PF Roundups •  PT Money

Weekend Link Roundup

•  Wise Bread Best Money Tips

•  Get Rich Slowly Spare Change

•  Money Crashers Personal Finance Roundup

•  Moolanomy Personal Finance Roundup

•  The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup

•  Budgets Are Sexy Weekly Roundup

•  Financial Highway Weekly Review

•  Sweating the Big Stuff Best of the Rest

•  Green Panda Tree House What’s Cool Around the Web


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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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Engage Anywhere and Everywhere

Weekly twitter chat at #wbchat


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Takeaway #3: Social Media = SEO

LifeRemix by @GlenStansberry


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1.  Always be link building. 2.  Engage the sphere. 3.  Slow and steady.

•  Be cautious. Move slowly. Beware of fads.


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Don’t Panic!

Look at those peaks and valleys.

Wise Bread lifetime search traffic


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Wise Bread’s SEO Playbook

Big Picture Strategy 1.  Always be link building. 2.  Engage the sphere. 3.  Slow and steady.

Day-to-Day Tactics 1.  Magazine quality articles. 2.  Article checklist. 3.  Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.


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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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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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1.  Magazine quality articles. 2.  Article checklist.

•  Help readers and search engines understand.


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Article Checklist

Places for Keywords ü  Article Title (<h1> tag) ü  Page Title (<title> tag) ü  Meta Description ü  URL ü  H-headings, bold, italics ü  <img> “alt” and “title”

properties ü  <a> “title” property

Editorial Considerations ü  Authority ü  Readability ü  Categories & Tags ü  Links out – related articles. ü  Links in – update related old

posts.

Tip! Mix up keywords. Use related phrases.


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1.  Magazine quality articles. 2.  Article checklist. 3.  Monitor, test, analyze, tweak.

•  Questions we ask. Tools we use.


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Tools We Actually Use

•  Research •  SEOmoz

•  Open Site Explorer •  KW Difficulty Tool

•  SEMRush •  Google

•  Search Results •  AdWords

•  Wise 1000 •  (fka Wise Bread’s Top

PF Blogs)

•  Monitoring •  Google Analytics •  Mint •  Sitemeter •  CrazyEgg •  Facebook Insights •  Klout


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SEMRush – Blog’s Best Rankings

http://www.semrush.com/info/fiscalgeek.com

This blog is an authority on… ?


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CrazyEgg – Heatmaps!

Winning SEO Strategy

Get relevant links to high quality content from trusted authorities.


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Action Item Work the list. Get a link from every relevant, high-quality blog.


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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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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

secrets of wise bread seo by greg go

Technology

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