© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Search Engine Optimisation: Black Art or Sweet Science?

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Natural (organic) search results

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Ouch, that’ll add up quick!

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Where do searchers look? The top of the natural results! (Enquiro, Did-it, Eyetools Study)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Homestead.com #1 for months – for free

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Google Directory – listings are organized by PageRank

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

ROI – Sales by keyword

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts ROI – Sales by referrer

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Best Practices  Keywords relevant AND popular  Lead with your targeted keywords  Emphasising your section titles  Body copy sufficiently long and keyword-rich  Link text contains good keywords  Alt tags on your navigation graphic links  Text links on home page to most important pages

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Best Practices  Site map with text links  URLs search engine friendly  Flat directory structure  High PageRank scores  Listed in Open Directory  Good meta descriptions w/ compelling call to action  Custom error page  Keyword-rich, human-readable URLs

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Worst Practices  Dropdown boxes for navigation  Flash, Java or Javascript navigation  Flash-based or overly graphical website  “Splash page"  Frames  Too many parameters (ampersands) in URLs  Session IDs or user IDs in URLs

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Worst Practices  Site spread across multiple domains  Title tags same on all pages  Pop-ups  Error pages in the search indices  Error page returning a 200 status code  Superfluous text in title tags, body copy, link text

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Spam Practices  Sneaky redirects  Hidden or tiny text  Keyword stuffing  Targeting irrelevant keywords  Automated submitting, resubmitting or deep submitting  Trademark infringement  Duplicating content

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Spam Practices  Spamglish  Doorway pages  Machine-generating pages  Pagejacking  Cloaking content  FFA & link farms  Buying expired domains w/ high PageRank

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Q&A Time! Introducing our Panel…  Chris Dimmock, MD, Cogentis  Derek O’Neil, COO, Ansearch  Marc Phillips, MD, APT Strategies  David Warmuz, MD, Trellian  Moderator: Stephan Spencer, MD, Netconcepts