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Microsoft SEO Summit Recap

Jun 28, 2007 Conferences, Lectures, MSN, Search Engine Marketing

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia and now owner of Citizendium spoke last Friday at Microsoft’s first SEO Summit. The summit provided search engine optimization techniques geared at improving rankings on all engines and not just on live.com. It is interesting to see Microsoft internally promoting Search Engine Optimization strategies to leverage the already existing content. However, It was also a wake up call to see the amount of opportunity to implement the basic SEO techniques to some of the major web properties.

A sample search of “Mobile Devices” in MSN ranks Microsoft’s webpage on mobile devices as the number 4th position. Searching for the same keywords in Google ranks Microsoft’s webpage as the first position. This could be both a SEO issue or a search relevancy issue. It will be interesting to see what happens with the upcoming improvements of Live.

Here are my highlights of Larry Sanger’s presentation at Microsoft’s SEO Summit.

How to create more traffic using a Web 2.0 community:

• Provide useful content. If you want to succeed in an online community you must develop a readership by providing useful content.
• Viral growth is the key. In order to make your site viral you must motivate others to participate. Organize from the bottom up. Motivate people to participate. Each contributor of Wikipedia felt some ownership of the content that they help created. Writers get excited when acknowledged by the community for contributing. Senger states “the reason people like contributing to Wikipedia because it is a rush when people comment, the more egos invested the more important it seems.”

How to make a Web 2.0 community work?

• Senger’s goal in creating Citizendium is to provide the world with higher quality content. Each member is required to use real names and not use pseudonyms to establish credibility. Although Wikipedia provides plenty of information, academics deem it lacks credibility. I find it as a good “starting point,” however, I would not go as far as to submit it in the footnotes for my end of year thesis.
• The content should be “spiderable.” Having a login for your subscription based content is fine if you can find the balance between monetizing premium content and making it easily indexed and “searchable.” Your site will attract more subscribers if users can find the information they are looking for. Also if you do require a registration, make it easy and efficient.

How can one create a viral project?

Elements of a compelling project

• The content must be worthwhile and interesting. The more niche a site or potential demand the better.
• Make the process of contribution must be easy. Digg has a successful rating system. Either Digg this or don’t, thumbs up or thumbs down. This point is often overlooked. A book I recommend reading for those involved in any part of website creation is Steven Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think. Website usability should come first.
• Simplicity of concept. For example, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it is not a mash up of you tube, etc…

Make it a public project

• Free (open) content is the best way to make it viral.
• Nonprofit helps too.
• Advertising-free is another bonus.
• Make the inner workings of a design open. For example, Firefox. It is also going to be interesting to see developers working with extending the Facebook application.

Create an attractive governance system

• Provide enough rules that the game is playable, people will then be interested in tweaking the rules.
• Participants need structure. Make it clear for them to know what to do (ex. Digg, thumbs up or thumbs down)
• Again have rewards of various sorts. Bear in mind you’re setting up a community. You’re a politician; your job is complicated.

Sanger’s presentation on creating a successful Web 2.0 site are basic but often overlooked. I would have liked to have more discussion around mission of new Web 2.0 sites. Where if any does the business model come in to play? The balance of creating an online community and making a profit. How does a large organization like Microsoft leverage existing platforms, Live, MSN Spaces, Hotmail and Messenger to develop a fully engaged community?

Best regards,

Bernard R. Ablola

See you at the top!

Watch Out Seattle - Here Comes Trouble

Jun 3, 2007 Conferences, Family, Search Engine Marketing, Seattle

The Ablola Brothers are in town and up to no good!

After the delayed flights, and lost luggage, my wife and I finally touched down in the Emerald City late Wednesday night. Bernard has been a great host, showing us his neighborhood, taking us on the MS tour, and exploring the touristy spots of downtown Seattle (pictures to come). The weather here has been amazing. Luckily we missed the downpours from Tropical Storm Berry, back home.

It’s Sunday morning and the Search Marketing Expo events begin this evening, kicking off with the Search Bash sponsored by MS. The plan for the day is to explore the festival at Pikes Place Market before checking into the hotel and getting my business game face on.

See you all at SMX.

Tags: Bernard, Francis, Search Marketing Expo, Seattle, SMX, Space Needle

Optimizing for Blog and Feed Engines – Part 2

Dec 18, 2006 Bernard, Conferences, Direct Response Marketing, Internet Marketing, MSN, Marketing, Microsoft, Networking, Search Engine Marketing

Here is part 2 of my SES Chicago recap. These are my top ten “take-aways” from Stephen Spencer’s presentation on “Optimizing for Blog and Feed Engines”. His entire presentation is one hour and can be found on the Netconcepts’s website under “Blog and Feed SEO”. It is definitely worth viewing. If you are pressed for time, here are my notes.

Blog and Feed SEO – 10 Things to do to:

1. Change URLs to include important keywords. Remember to use hyphens not underscores in your title tags. A more detailed explanation is found on my previous post - part 1 “Optimizing Your Blog.”
2. Don’t put tracking codes into the URLs (e.g. &source=rss). This confuses the search engines.
3. Older posts have a disadvantage with the search engines because they are archived. Place a “Top Ten Post” or “Most Viewed” post on your homepage to keep your best articles in circulation. See problogger.net for examples.
4. Develop a robust internal linking structure by placing ‘tag clouds’ on bottom of your homepage, add ‘next and previous’ post links below your articles, and remove the ‘permalink’ links and rewrite them to actual keyword links.
5. If you are using WordPress as your blog editor, change the “tagline” under the options tag from “Just another WordPress weblog” to a specific description of your website.
6. If your website loads without a ‘www’ and it appears in a browser, make sure to use a 301 redirect from yourblog.com to www.yourblog.com. By using a 301 redirect, search engines will not have to re-index another website.
7. Download and use the “SEO Title Tag” plug-in for WordPress. This allows you to define a custom home page title for your pages.
8. Create separate RSS feeds for each category on your blog. This gives your readers options to subscribe to certain topics.
9. Use the Neat-o-tool to look for opportunities to request revisions in your anchor text and inbound links.
10. When creating internal links to old post, don’t use the phrase ‘click here’ or ‘previous’, use descriptive keyword links.

I hope this list helps in your search optimization efforts. I have plenty to tackle myself and will report my results to you soon. Have fun!

To your success!

Bernard Ablola

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2006 – Recap Part 1 “Optimizing Your Blog”

Dec 11, 2006 Bernard, Conferences, Direct Response Marketing, Google, Internet Marketing, Microsoft, Networking, Search Engine Marketing

Okay, I just got back from my first Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago. It was wonderful to see some old friends and meet some new ones. My top “takeaway” from SES Chicago was Stephen Spencer’s presentation “Optimizing Your Blog”. Spencer is the president of the web design and search marketing firm, Netconcepts. Spencer offered extensive “behind the closed door” advice. The following are the top 3 key insights from his presentation.

1. Using Word Press and other blog tools to create a dynamic website
2. Optimizing Your Blog/Website for SEO
3. Building Inbound Links

Using Word Press and other blog tools to create a dynamic website

Netconcepts.com recently redesigned their site using the Word Press platform. The website includes various plug-ins, such as Ultimate Tag Warrior, rss, tag clouds and related posts. Most websites are not developed using a blog platform. However, after they redesigned the site, the amount of traffic dramatically increased. Due to this restructuring, netconcepts.com became digg and del.cio.us friendly, enabling the users to tag specific pages and create a robust social networking experience. This also allowed for the site to exponentially grow in size. Each post, entry and testimonial became a separate page, thus creating more pages for the search engines to crawl.

Optimizing Your Blog/Website for SEO

When structuring your blog/website, keep it SEO friendly by being aware of the internal hierarchical linking structure and utilizing keywords in your title tags. Find a balance between writing creative titles and creating titles that users will most likely search for. Keep pages close to the root folder. For example, www.yourdomain.com/category/page.html. When creating titles for your pages, include keywords in your URLs and use hyphens not underscores. Including a “Top Ten Post” as seen in www.problogger.net makes popular content available to new readers. Also, make use of “previous” and “next” links to insure optimal navigation.

Building Inbound Links

When building inbound links don’t just rely on the web and email for communication. Meet influential bloggers in person. Many bloggers attend SES, Pubcon, Blog on, and Business Blog Summit conferences. If you are the introverted type, use my networking tips from my previous post. Also, read and comment on other blogs and become active in these communities.

SES Chicago, in general, and Spencer’s presentation, in particular, was worth surviving the Chicago Airport and the below freezing weather. I look forward to implementing these changes on this blog and other web properties. I highly suggest attending the Search Engine Strategies Conference and expediting the implementation of these tips to increase your traffic.

To your success on the web!

Bernard Ablola

P.S. Here are my photos from SES Chicago 2006

Tags: Search Engine Strategies