Advanced SEO Tools, SearchFest 2010

Posted on by Rachel@anvilmediainc.com

Learn how to leverage advanced SEO tools to improve the performance of your website.

Speakers:

Rand Fishkin – SEOmoz

Richard Zwicky – Enquisite

Moderator:

Scott Hendison

Liveblogger:

Live blogging by Rachel Andersen of Anvil Media, a Portland SEM Agency.

Session Details

10 Problems SEOs Face – and the Tools to Solve Them (Rand)

Find all tools mentioned here: https://www.seomoz.org/dp/10-seo-tools

  • Indexation Data: ignore site command – the “about” number is useless. Webmaster Tools is better. Best data is Google Analytics – look at the # of landing pages getting organic visits.
  • Identifying Crawl Errors: GWT is excellent for 404 and 500 errors. Top Pages is good for 302s and robots blocking. Xenu Link Sleuth (desktop download)
  • Valuing Sites and Pages for SEO: how well would content rank on this domain vs. that domain. If I were able to get a link on this domain vs. that domain. Ignore Google Toolbar PageRank – this not worth your time. Instead, track relevant traffic! Domain and page authority tool.
  • Real Time Tracking of Social Activity: track progress and success with PostRank. How many people tagged on delicious, tweeted, etc. One caveat is that you need a feed but ties into Google Analytics. Cool! Backtweets is also great for tracking tweets regardless of URL tracking service used. Bit.ly is good but obviously only tracks URLs shortened by Bit.ly… BUT if you put the plus (+) sign at the end of the shortened URL you can see user and competitive data. Trendistic – tracks tweets by topic, enter any keyword and see activity.
  • Competitive SERP Analysis: best thing you can do at this point is custom build your competitive analysis. Root domains linking to page vs # of keyword match anchor links. SEOBook toolbar is also decent. mozBar SERPs Overlay.
  • Efficient On Page SEO Analysis: DaveN Keyword Analysis (Density) Tool – a plug in that provides a deep analysis. Also mozBar Overlay is pretty bomb for a quick and easy page analysis.
  • Identifying Search Engine Penalties: Check Historical Google PageRank, compare PageRank vs. mozRank – if there is a major difference there could be some sort of penalty, may want to dig deeper here. Unique keyword phrase rankings.
  • Competitive Link Acquisition Tools: HubFinder on SEOBook, LinkIntersect, Link Acquisition Assistant
  • Optimizing Keyword Clusters: using synonyms to create a “cluster” to create a stronger page theme. Google Wonder Wheel, Google Related Searches, MSN AdCenter Entity Association Graph (can only do one term at a time).
  • Comparing Website Traffic: Quantcast is best for Quantified Sites, Compete.com slightly more accurate but not as accurate as Google Trends for Websites. Google Reader Feed Subscribers – shows actual number of feed subscribers!

Stuff You Possibly Might Not Already Know about Tools and Stuff (Richard)

  • Cool Tools with API’s – Alexa (numbers cant be trusted, but look at relative data), Compete, scoring tools like mozRank, Forecasting tools such as Epiar, MajesticSEO is good for links. A balanced approach offers true value.
  • At the end of the day it’s all about accountability.
  • Every day customers tell you exactly what they are looking for and what they are interested in but we’re ignoring the (analytics) data. Improve your business through proper segmentation.
  • Data can be really valuable, getting consensus on numbers can be hard
  • Back in late 90’s early 2000s – lack of meaningful data to provide accurate and consistent data.
  • Predictive analysis allows you to capture high value customers
  • Where Tools Fit – invest, execute, monitor, report and then re-invest. This process requires a set of tools to be strategically.
  • How to use tools to build applications – Akamai, Aster Data (database management software) and Enquisite. Take different tools and use them in conjunction with each other.
  • Enquisite Suite – API driven apps from tools
  • Enquisite Optimizer – social, search and links. Uses Yahoo API for maps. Akamai for 2 levels of geo-verification – need to understand online and offline activities which Akamai does this with fantastic granularity. Adobe has layers built to transfer data to connect various APIs to create meaningful data.
  • Enquisite Campaign – predictive analysis. Because analytics tells you what happened yesterday and not what is going to happen tomorrow. Predictions, Insights and ROI.
  • How APIs Flush out a Product – Linker. Very cool opt in network for link building. Submit information to be connected with relevant sites that could be a link opportunity.