The SEMpdx Searchfest continues to be one of the best conferences on emerging search industry related topics, and we’re so lucky to have it right in our backyard! Many of the full time SEO professionals have already posted their notes. I’m posting mine here to share with my co-workers and clients as well. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

dc

Presentation slides can be found here and will make the notes more relevant.

Keynote

Temporal Link Analysis: Tracking when and how many incoming links were created to a given site. This analysis makes reciprocol linking very obvious to Google and site rankings will suffer as a result. (This was later proven in the Hot Seat Panel discussion.)

VIPS - Vision Based Page Segmentation. Search engines now look for patterns in web templates of where to find the actual content within a website compared to the header, footer, and navigation areas. Links and content within these areas are given the greatest attention.

Tracking Page Rank is less and less important due to predictive and personalized search results. Rand’s advice was to monitor traffic rather than Page Rank.

Rumor: Google can crawl the entire “fresh” web in 4 hours?!

The new sought after inbound links are those based around community and content. Referred to as Editorial Linking.

Site Architecture, Usability, and SEO Analysis

Internal linking:
- ‘you may also be interested in’ content related links
- use analytics to drive popular and related links
- avoid an easy duplicate content issue with your index pages by linking to just the directory containing the index page

Search box is most often looked for in the upper right hand portion of the header.

Keyword analysis: Consider # of page viewed, Time on Site, and Bounce Rate to create actionable intelligence from analytics. For instance if the bounce rate is very high but the time on site was 5 minutes, the user was actually engaged reading the page whereas just considering the bounce rate might suggest the page was a failure.

Google Internal Site Search - provides reporting on what terms are being searched within your site. Very helpful for determining what is either missing or hard to find on your site.

Links: Gooruze, eMarketingPerformance, TubeMogul, SMXWest, BusinessOL, Online Marketing Summit, Sphinn

Link Building

Ideas for link building in today’s search engine climate:

Page rank sculpting with NoFollow

Sharing promotional badges

Yahoo Site Explorer - Get competitor links

Yahoo Hub Finder - Very cool!

Easy link baiting example with a photo and caption on Digg

Yahoo Answers

Juicy Link Finder

LinkHounds

Google Alerts

‘Techtarded’ - Definition of a person not technologically inclined.

Links: WebConnoisseur, Pounce, Twitter, SEO for Firefox extension,

Marketing with Social Media

Mini and Micro Blogging = Ubersyndication. Make the machines do the work for you.
Twitter App for FaceBook

“Make visitors fans of your product.” They’ll post content and links because they’re fans.
“Web 2.0 is now.”

Set up Google Alerts on anything of PR concern and subscribe to the corresponding .RSS feed. (So easy and obvious!)

Links: Bringr, SearchMob, Tumblr, TwitterSearch, SocialPoster, Flock, KickApps, Jott

Hot Seat Tips

• Unique title tags per page
• Make sure copyright year is actually correct on all pages.
• Spam resistant contact forms should include a ‘how did you hear about us’ field.
• SEOMoz Crawl Test
• Replace %20 with hyphens as much as possible in URL’s
• Search results on enterprise sites should include results based on entry-to-site search string, navigation history, and related pages.
• Chat now icon’s should have an image of a person, and one that evokes and a positive emotional response.
• Webmaster Console

dc

This blog has received woefully little attention this past year, and I’m starting 2008 by posting my year in review a month late. Not a great start and a blogging sin is what I would describe it as to my clients to be truthful! But just like a great mechanic, the projects you are most likely to neglect are your own because you’re busy performing for your clients. (How’s that for a thinly veiled excuse of an apology?!)

But in all seriousness, as we begin 2008, I have many people to thank for what has been a most successful 2007 at Crouch Consulting:

+ At Oregon State University, the Office of Enrollment Management and the Office of Admissions; my boss and my main clients. I am really fortunate to work with a truly dedicated team of professionals that are striving to do the best job they can. I’m inspired all the time by their efforts and I look forward to successfully completing even greater projects with them in the coming year!

+ The professional organizations of PACRAO and PNACAC, as well as Academic Impressions for inviting me back again for another year to speak at your conferences and workshops. It is always rewarding to communicate with other professionals in our field and continue our growth together.

+ To Pacwest Engineering LLC in Albany, Oregon, for being a great friend and resource to Crouch Consulting.

+ Stephanie at ATI Wah Chang for the opportunity to chew the fat with the big boys once and a while.

+ I have been fortunate enough to work with BossAutos for 2 years and I’m grateful for the work and exposure Clayton!

+ To Mark and Laura, owners of Calapooia Brewing who give me far more latitude than I deserve!

+ No thank you posting would be complete without a big thank you to Millholland Conrad for continuing to trust me with their business for over 7 years!

+ And to the new relationships made this year with the following clients: Albany Massage Center, Mark Stevens Photography in Denver, and WornBy in London. I have enjoyed working with all of you and look forward to our work together in the coming year!

Here’s to our success in 2008 and I pledge to make this blog active and useful moving forward!

dc

Blake Vawter and myself will be working with Academic Impressions to present an online webinar on Search Engine Optimization techniques for Admissions. This will be a great presentation for Admissions and Enrollment Management professionals who are looking for greater visibility on the web without breaking the bank.

Key presentation details:

- Identifying the costs and benefits of search engine optimization (SEO)
- Using SEO to increase your website’s search engine visibility
- Employing web analytics to track website visitors and their behavior
- Making informed decisions based on web analytics data

I hope you’ll join us on April 24th for Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization in Admissions.

dc

I’m priveledged and honored for the opportunity to speak at this years AACRAO Strategic Enrollment Management Conference. I look forward to speaking with you on Thursday the 15th from 2pm to 4pm. Blake Vawter and I will be highlighting cutting edge web tools for use within your EM unit to promote, recruit, capture and convert prospective and current students seeking out your university.

dc

Many thanks to PNACAC and Alicia Ortega specifically for inviting me to speak on Technology in Admissions at their summer institute. It was great meeting everyone and if you would like the presentation slides, I borrowed them from an older AACRAO presenation given by Eric Stoller.

If you have further questions, please feel free to leave a comment that I’ll answer on this blog post.

Thanks again,

dc

An Event Apart Seattle 2006 Schedule

See you in Seattle!

dc