Dan Thies Explodes Internet Marketing SEO Myths In This Search Engine Optimization Interview
Posted by James in Conversions, How To, Interview, News, PPC, SEO, Traffic
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Dan Thies can be counted on for a controversial SEO perspective and he is qualified too. He is one half of the SEO Brain Trust, a new project for dedicated Search Engine Optimization enthusiasts and students. The other half is Leslie Rohde.
Internet Marketing all-rounder
Dan Thies is a very capable SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) and PPC (Pay Per Click) marketer. He has a very good business mind honed from being in the market for such a long time. If you can get good at both SEO and PPC then you have a great combination for making money online. I respect him very much and he is the man I ran my latest SEO product past before publishing because he knows a lot about this topic. He has a real business mind. We got to catch up and share some fresh information in this interview.
Keyword Strategy
When looking for the right words to use on the site you should use both the obvious ones AND the ones you dig up later through research. You will find they break into general relevance and specific relevance. (Ignore wishful thinking keywords!). Every page is a marketing channel. Traffic to the site will typically be coming to the site through multiple pages so you want to cater to as many relevant key phrases as possible.
Google Changes
Now with the way Google displays results there is a premium on the top few listings in Google. The top few spots are super sought after. The top three listings carry the greatest click through rates. Google are now trialling triple listings in the search results pages (SERPS). This is especially important since explorer browser uses tabbed browsing and this takes up more space.
CTR (Click Through Rate) Statistics
Statistically (over 800 domains) Dan has gathered private data that shows the click through rates of the top three listings. 50% of the clicks go to the top three results. 60% of those clicks go to the top position. In other words, Dan recommends trying to get number one listings for less competitive terms than lower page one rankings for difficult terms. Google are also inserting shopping listings and video listings in the middle of page one on a frequent basis.
SEO is a resources game
Try to do the on-site stuff at once but work on the link building as quickly as you can to get the site making money. Put the profits back into the site and build the amount of links for every possible relevant phrase. Keep using the resources you have to get top rankings for as many phrases as you can.
ACT
ACT stands for Analytics and Conversion Testing. Working on persuasion elements (paying off on the promise) is a deep science that gets huge yields. This is an area Dan is passionate about and deeply specialized. When doing SEO consider that conversions are a HUGE part of the equation because that is the ultimate purpose for a site.Profit comes from traffic multiplied by conversions.
Strategy and tactics
You need to do a lot to stay ranked because the competitors with the deeper pockets will out spend you in maintaining a top SEO listing. The competition moves down to lower and lower competition keywords. You will need to get savvy with SEO because the game is getting beyond article spinning and made for adsense sites. As time goes on more webmasters will be getting smarter.
Short v long
Sometimes the choice keywords are the short ones however not always. Often the longer tail phrases are more profitable. Revenue per click for pay per click ads show that the highest ranked keywords get more clicks and make more money per click. This means you should be aiming high for PPC and SEO using the RIGHT keyphrases.
Using PPC?
Use exact match because broad match sucks. Recently the live quality score has meant that a lot of exact match phrase match ads no longer display. Dan will be releasing a PPC course to cater for these changes. These are being rolled out in brainstrust. PPC and SEO go very well together. Use SEO to locate the traffic for PPC campaigns. You can buy more profits this way. (I run the Google search query report to tell me what key phrases are bringing me the traffic). Having great SEO with great rankings you can expect to have an excellent quality score. I have long advocated the use of both paid and SEO traffic techniques to get a larger part of the pie.
Amateurs days are numbered
We discussed the state of the market where there are some low quality operators out there jamming out spun content and fully automated blogs. Dan predicts they will get wiped out if they do not pay attention. The only way to play that game is volume related. Sites will get filtered as Google gets smarter and dials up the sensitivity. Dan prefers working on real sites with real content. The hybrid method Dan suggests revolves around having both the money sites and the content sites.
Daily original content
Have an assistant screen topic related RSS feeds and within 30 minutes create 10 pages of content. It is a useful human driven content aggregation system. We discuss the feedwordpress and wp-o-matic plugins for Wordpress. Putting fresh content on each site allows you to have a bigger site than your competitors by using the inbound links that are on each page pointing back to the page you need. The next step is to do this outside your site by building feeder sites that are building links to your but this is even more effective if you build links to your linkwheel sites. The more links you have and the more pages you have the more rank you can expect.
Useful Tools for Internet Marketing
Excel spreadsheets and RSS reader tools are handy for workflow management. Dan uses Delicious bookmarking for his outsource team. He bookmarks anything he wants his team to create links for and they automatically start linking. Using automation for Facebook, Twitter or some similar device is a very smart idea. Always offer readers a Twitter or Facebook sharing button option. (HINT – this blog post has one!)…. We are programmed to help share awesome content when we find it. Do whatever you can to get do to get a large fan base. Facebook fan pages are a good idea (and possibly better than an opt-in list according to Dan).
Great content is easy
Every page that carries good content can give to more links to your sites, enter your market as the bookmarking site for that industry and bookmark your own stuff too. If you can get user generated content you are ahead of the game.
Is PageRank still important?
What matters far more is whether Google is indexing your page and is the cache date up to date. Dan says pagerank is nothing to be obsessing about, he does not even look at it. Google originally intended the PR device as a value ad for the toolbar. It probably helped them to get a lot of tool bars into the browser of the civilian market. Professional SEO’s need not worry about the PR toolbar.
Getting links
If you need links just go to a forum and post. The closer the forum is to topic related matter the better the link. Answering posts in forums gets you links to your site. You can use the search function and find topics that are on theme. You don’t need monthly high PR backlink reports.
Get Dan on your side
If you want to get access to more of Dan Thies stuff then I recommend you get into SEOBrainstrust. They are offering research, testing, special private data, Bugs in Google, safe exploitations and other things that nobody else discusses are on the agenda. One of the excellent features is the Q & A podcasts. I have checked it out and it is excellent especially the clear videos. If you have a business or you are an SEO then this is perfect. Dan also shares data on Link liberation lessons (how to get links, where to get links, why to get links etc). I am also offering a bonus for you if you join through my link.
SEO Brain Trust Bonus
When you become a paid member of SEO Brain Trust you also get two months access to SuperFastResults forum. This is my own private forum where you can get help from me and other switched on marketers. (If you are already a member then you can select a digital copy of Business Internet Formula instead).
Simply sign up for SEO Brain Trust here Send your receipt with your claim for checking here
I look forward to your comments below:
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9 Comments
27. Dec, 2009
James,
Thanks for the SEO interview with Dan. I follow him but not enough.
I look forward to your emails because I know there will be stuff and not just fluff.
John
28. Dec, 2009
Thanks John! More good stuff coming!
28. Dec, 2009
Hopefully the point about amateur days being over not only comes true for low level auto blogs but also low level SEO consultants. The amount of marketers out there making a living off keyword stuffing copy and meta tag optimisation is too great for 2010 (or so we can hope). The stuff Dan talks about in terms of linking is pretty good. I went through his link liberation course, although i wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be (for the price it came at), I still found a few useful snippets. Still, it did put me of going into SEOBrainTrust. I might look at it again during 2010 …
28. Dec, 2009
As the market matures there will be refinements. I am sure there will be plenty of change in 2010. I did not do link liberation however one thing Dan reminds us is that it may not be sexy sometimes however the basics still work.
For a newish to intermediate SEO his stuff would get them into good habits faster.
04. Jan, 2010
I know you talk about building as many links with phrases as possible and you mention you have over 800 sites… what I would like is a removal of all sites that use these lame techniques to build bussiness. I know everybody knows what I am refering too. The sites that are just search term gateway pages that many people do to have a mega collection of words and links that are all mashed together.
But regardless of this issue, I think your techniques are top on.
I hope now that since we are in 2010, we will see a more intelligent use of biz logic across all layers of online marketeers. The hundred monkey effect I believe.
05. Jan, 2010
Hi Lenn,
I expect 2010 will clean up a lot of trash. Valueless sites have no place on the Google landscape. (I have noticed many of my sites have increased in rank recently as they are quality sites that offer value).
15. Jan, 2010
James I wish I could predict something that would be spot on, it is just that I am concerned about all the newbies that have been populating the net with zero experience and are all in a learn as you go mindset. Very scary to imagine what a lack of higher understanding will do to the net as we see it.
I wish someone out there would user there samurai sword and make mince meat out of the sites that just go in circles with seemingly endless links that all contain the search term you typed in somewhere…. like whoa…..
31. Jan, 2010
James,thank you for this info abt SEO,I am now learn knowleage abt SEO,so i am great to see this article,will keep on your blog,hope to see more good article
16. Apr, 2010
Well, i cant deny this is the very good post i have come across, after checking out many blogs on SEO, the tips & information provided here is very helpful. Thanks a lot, James.
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