Ask The SEOs This was the final panel of SMX Advanced, and it was pretty intense. It was one big, fast and furious Q&A. Sadly, without associated PowerPoint presentations from the speakers, as well as the chaotic nature of this Q&A, it was tough to take notes this time around. This panel was an all-star panel of SEO celebrities, again moderated by Danny Sullivan. Panelists included Bruce Clay of Bruce Clay Inc., Alex Bennert of the Wall Street Journal, Greg Boser of BlueGlass Interactive, Vanessa Fox of Search Engine Land, Todd Friesen of SearchFanatics, and Rae Hoffman-Dolan of PushFire. This was a very spirited discussion among titans of the industry, so let’s see what was gathered from them… Penguin – Of course there was a lot of talk of Penguin, since it was so fresh in everyone’s minds, as well as potentially damaging to so many websites. While many people … Continue reading
Category Archives: Conference Recaps
SMX Advanced 2012: Day 2, Part 2
Pagination & Canonicalization for the Pros This fairly technical panel was pretty fascinating because I’ve always been interested in these concepts. This is something that I find so many clients forget about entirely that I wanted to hear more info from experts on the subject, so I could share it with my clients and anyone else who would listen. This panel was moderated by Vanessa Fox of Search Engine Land, and the speakers included Adam Audette of RKG, Jeff Carpenter of Petco and Maile Ohye of Google. Let’s take a look at some of the major talking points: There’s No One Proven Pagination Method – In this panel, there were several methods given to try and achieve crawlable, scalable pagination on eCommerce sites with a lot of pages, as well as a lot of categories and series within categories. The first mentioned is the “noindex, follow” method. This means that … Continue reading
SMX Advanced 2012: Day 2, Part 1
We’re back for coverage of panels from the second and final day of SMX Advanced 2012 in Seattle. Day two included three panels, the first covering Schema and Authorship. I’ll admit I haven’t toyed with these much in my career, so it was fascinating to learn how these things worked and how useful they can be for both the user experience, as well as SEO. Schema & Authorship – 1 Year Later This panel was moderated by Search Engine Land’s Elisabeth Osmeloski, and included presentations from Benu Aggarwal of Milestone Internet Marketing, Matthew Brown of AudienceWise, Rick DeJarnette of The SEO Ace and David Weichel of CPC Strategy. Here’s a look at some of the main points… Denoting Proper Authorship Of Unique Content Is Vital – Even though I have my own blog, which I update regularly, I’ll be honest in that I never paid much attention to denoting proper … Continue reading
SMX Advanced 2012: Day 1, Part 4
You&A With Google’s Matt Cutts This was the final panel that I attended on the first day of SMX Advanced, and it was moderated by Danny Sullivan. I had never seen Matt Cutts in person, but he’s pretty much the same bubbly figure that he comes across as in his webmaster videos. Let’s take a look at some of the main talking points: Penguin – The panel began right away with questions about Penguin, which was completely expected. Essentially, Penguin is seen within Google as trying to find a calibration level to help tackle the spam that Panda missed. It’s just one of the over 200 signals that Google uses to help determine the quality and authoritativeness of a website. Some are seeing it as a penalty because it does indeed devalue some websites, but Penguin is not a penalty, just one more algorithm change. Since algorithm changes are done … Continue reading
SMX Advanced 2012: Day 1, Part 3
Authority Building vs. Link Building In A Search Meets Social World Elisabeth Osmeloski, Managing Editor of Search Engine Land, moderated this panel with speakers Tom Schmitz of Schmitz Marketing, Philip Petrescu of Caphyon, Casie Gillette of Grasshopper and Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting. I’ll admit I’ve always been interested in the concept of building authority, so I was particularly looking forward to this panel. The main discussion points included: Recent Google Updates Signaling Importance In Authority – According to Mr. Schmitz, both the Panda and Penguin updates were geared toward devaluing sites with either low-quality content or low-quality links, respectfully. If your site got hit with either of these updates, you should either remove as many low-quality links as you can or all of your thin, low-quality content, or possibly both. Sadly, he also laments that some domains can’t be rehabilitated. These signals obviously show how Google is trying … Continue reading
SMX Advanced 2012: Day 1, Part 2
Surviving Personalization with Bing and Google The second panel at SMX Advanced 2012 was very entertaining. It was also moderated by Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, and included three speakers; Marty Weintraub of aimClear (who thankfully provided the coffee for the event), Aaron Freeman from Spark and Rhea Drysdale from Outspoken Media. This lively discussion covered the following topics: Personalized Search Requires That We Be Personal – This means that, like the user experience section in the previous session, we tailor our outreach to be as personal as we can. This should be done through social media and tailoring content to our visitors as best we can. You want to be personal so you can entice subscribers to your page, as well as influencers and entities, which are a big component of personalized search. Influencers Are Key – Influencers are becoming a huge driving force in regards to how content … Continue reading