SES Live: Advanced Link Building, Panda Solutions, SEO Tools, and More!

Below is live coverage of the Advanced Link Building, Panda Solutions, SEO Tools, and More! panel from the SES San Francisco 2011 conference. This coverage is provided by Ben Pfeiffer at RankSmart.

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• 1:12:45 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim Boykin Gives Advice on Advanced Link Building, Panda Solutions, SEO Tools, and More!
  Jim has been a leader in the field of Internet Marketing and SEO for over 10 years. Jim will show you some of his most "killer tactics" for obtaining some of the most trusted backlinks in the world. Jim will also talk about the Panda Update and will give many tips on how can you recover. If you haven't been hit by Panda, Jim will tell you what you still need to know to prevent your site from being hit by Panda in the future. Jim will also talk about some of the best Internet marketing tools on the market, and how can you utilize them to be an Internet Marketing Hero.
  
  Speaker:
  Jim Boykin, CEO and Link Building Ninja, We Build Pages Internet Marketing Services
• 1:18:31 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim starts by asking some questions from the audience.
• 1:19:18 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He asks how many people where affected by Panda?
• 1:19:38 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He says the first Panda update was Feb 24th.
• 1:20:09 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  There have been several updates since then, mini update. He says Panda will continue to roll out. There are a lot of important lessons to learn from these updates.
• 1:20:15 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  What is Panda?
• 1:20:43 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Google said they don't like content farms. But many of the sites that got hit where not content farms, ecommerce got hit, his own personal sites got hit.
• 1:20:54 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Brands seemed to benefit from Panda
• 1:21:22 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Panda is all about content and usability. It's on the page level, its like cancer. Dragging you down. It affects your whole website.
• 1:21:44 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  A page that links to lots of low quality pages can have its page score lowered.
• 1:22:41 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  It kinda works like a backwards PageRank. If Page A links to Page B, and Page B has a low quality score then the score for page A can be lowered because it links to back B.
• 1:23:06 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Things have changed. Pages that are in the supplemental index, can not drag down your website.
• 1:23:15 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  One of the biggest issue is duplicate content.
• 1:23:23 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  It's a huge issue.
• 1:24:00 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Use: site:mywebsite.com "snippet of content from your website" If you are not #1, then Google doesn't think you are the original content.
• 1:24:27 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  If you are do that same search and it shows multiple pages on your website that have the same snippet. That is not also good.
• 1:25:25 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Google's advice: "we often measure whether users click the "back" button quickly after visiting a search result, which might indicate a lack of satisfaction with your site."
• 1:26:06 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  The quote was from Amit on Feb 24, the day after Panda was released
• 1:26:16 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Some factors to look at on your website.
• 1:26:38 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Time on Page? Less than 15 seconds, you may have a problem. If they return to Google
• 1:27:18 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Pages Visited? You may have a problem if no one explores your deep content, except those from a search result.
• 1:27:49 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Brand Loyalty? Are 90% of your visitors first time visitors (and from Search) who never return.
• 1:28:22 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Exit Rates and Bounce Rates? What are people doing on your high exit rate pages? Finding answers, or returning to Google?
• 1:28:53 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Pogo sticking? Not in your Analytics. Pogo sticking is short clicks and long clicks.
• 1:30:02 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  To paraphrase Tolstoy (a google engineer) happy users were all the same. The best sign of their happiness was the long click. This occurred when someone when to a search result, ideally the top one and did not return.
• 1:30:35 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim is going to go through Amit's 23 questions about your website.
• 1:31:37 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  For example: Would you trust this information? Is the article written by an expert or enthusiast? Duplicate content or just slightly different content? Would you give your credit card to this site?
• 1:32:20 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Spelling and style errors? Content written for interest or for search engines? Original content? Value your page offers compared to other pages in the top 10? How much quality control do you have?
• 1:33:28 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Spelling errors? Content written by an expert? Original content? Value your pages offers companies to other pages int he top 10? How much quality control do you have?
• 1:34:19 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Testing.. having some connection issues..
• 1:34:59 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Testing again...
• 1:35:23 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Okay it seems to be fixed.
• 1:35:47 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim recommends going through your website and making a list of pages you want to remove.
• 1:36:33 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim says there is a lot of things you can do to fix pages, one of them is removing pages. He says he strongly recommends it.
• 1:36:50 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He has clients that have recovered from Panda. Most of all their traffic has come back.
• 1:37:04 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Some of the solutions to Panda.
• 1:37:15 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  1. Study Your Google Analytics.
• 1:37:32 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  2. Perform a usability analysis.
• 1:37:54 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  3. Performa a Clicktale analysis
• 1:38:11 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  4. Perform a content analysis.
• 1:38:24 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  5. Kill Pages - merge, no index.
• 1:38:33 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  6. Create new designs.
• 1:39:28 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He says you need to write longer content. Informative content. 300 words just won't cut it anymore.
• 1:39:52 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  What happens when you can get rid of those 10,000 pages. The solution is to keep them but prevent Google from spidering them.
• 1:40:13 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim next talks about Author Rank. Not so much about Panda, maybe a little bit.
• 1:42:00 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Google is making a big effort to identify original authors on the site.
• 1:43:27 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Author Rank is similar to Page Rank
• 1:43:43 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  How can your utilize Author Rank
• 1:43:50 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  1. Create an author for your site.
• 1:44:09 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  2. Facebook, twitter... be active
• 1:44:34 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  3. Write content, get links to that content... the better the links, the more trusted the author will be.
• 1:44:55 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Use the author for even product description pages.. Cite that and it might help these pages.
• 1:45:10 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Now some advanced link building tips.
• 1:45:36 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Your must promote that great content!
• 1:45:48 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Presell pages... so 2007ish
• 1:46:14 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  A published Author.. now that's 2012!
• 1:48:29 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Link Wheels so 2010 or even 2011ish.
• 1:49:05 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Backlinks to Backlinks... Now that's 2012.
• 1:50:16 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  If you get a link from Nasa.gov. Build links to that page. It increases the value.
• 1:50:43 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  blah blah stuff I can't repeat as requested from Jim. :)
• 1:54:22 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Linkbait is so 2007.. Getting followers, likes, and mentions is so 2012.
• 1:55:20 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Begging for links.. thats so 2007ish. Fixing existing pages is better. Hey Stanford professor, you have some broken links, he is a great fix.
• 1:55:48 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Short tail or long tail? Measure your risk.
• 1:55:57 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim asks if there is anyone here from Google?
• 1:56:26 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Link building helps you to rank in the short tail results.
• 1:56:57 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  If you want to rank for the short tail, such as car insurance. You need to have people linking to your site with the term "car insurance"
• 1:57:11 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  How do you get links like that... you can give people money. Google doesn't like that.
• 1:57:23 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim said do not buy links... disclaimer.
• 1:57:40 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  But if you don't buy links you are probably not going to rank for short tail phrases.
• 1:58:01 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He says if you not going to buy links, you might as well give up on the short tail.
• 1:58:19 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  You can make up the traffic with the long tail.
• 1:58:48 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  If you get caught buying links... You remove the links, say you never knew you were supposed to do that.
• 1:59:19 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim says don't do: blog reviews (bad). They are so easy to spot.
• 2:00:41 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim says... Directories. Only a good handful. Yahoo, DMOZ, BOTW.
• 2:01:09 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim says: Bulk Links... if its obvious you have a ton of paid links its harder to tell Google you didn't know any better.
• 2:02:00 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Links in sidebars and footers are more obviously and don't have as much impact as those links in middle content.
• 2:02:17 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim recommends subpages links, homepages are too easy to spot.
• 2:03:48 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim says content syndication.. Not a lot of value. Is it the same article published on the many websites.
• 2:04:06 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Same with press releases. Those don't hold much value.
• 2:04:22 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Link bait is still good, but its evolved.
• 2:04:48 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Trustbait is writing content for educators, long articles, few pictures.
• 2:05:27 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Paid links still work.. but its a risk vs. reward
• 2:05:37 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Another method is going for the long tail.
• 2:06:08 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Jim is going to breeze through tools. Not much time left.
• 2:06:41 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Good tip: linkdomain:yoursite.com -site:yoursite.com in Yahoo Singapore
• 2:07:24 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He highly recommends SEMRush.com
• 2:10:09 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  He also recommends TweetReach.com. Shows how many that tweet reached.
• 2:12:13 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  One solution (maybe) to Panda is putting that content on a subdomain.
• 2:12:47 PMBen Pfeiffer:
  Session is over.