Archive for October, 2006

As search engine optimization evolves into a more well rounded marketing discipline, SEOs are revisiting more traditional marketing objectives. No longer does the job stop at attracting visitors to a website. Conversion tracking is the name of the game.

Rand posted “When an Action Comes Around, You Must Track It” over at SEOmoz but I feel he missed one very important metric that can directly affect search engine rankings. Google has it’s own conversion metric based on user behavior which will become an increasing factor in rankings as time goes on.

I don’t know the exact number of Google toolbars installed, but I am estimating it’s in the millions. Combine that data with the data from Google Analytics and you have a very comprehensive sample group to determine user behavior.

If someone finds you in the #1 spot for your targeted keyword and clicks the link to visit your site, Google knows if they go on to visit multiple pages or if they drop off after the first page. This behavior is a very strong indication whether the user found what they where looking for. If a large enough percentage of visitors never go beyond that one page, then that would be a very good indication to Google that they need to drop you for another site that shows signs of being on topic to the searchers needs.

All statistics programs track page views per visitor, but they do not treat these numbers as conversions. You will need to manually segment them based on search queries and add conversion values. Now determining what value to place on these types of visitors is up for discussion. Any takers?

So go and check your stats program. If the average page views per visit coming from your search terms is anywhere near 1 , then it’s time to do some tweaking to those pages. Give the visitors what they are looking for or be prepared to no longer receive those visitors.

Brian just posted a brilliant article titled “How to beat the Google Sandbox” over at SEOmoz.

If you want to beat the Google Sandbox then don’t directly link build for your target small business site. Instead set up your own content and links on more authoritative third-party sites, and link build for these pages instead.

With the Sandbox filters set to maximum over at the Plex, we are always looking for new and inventive ways to drive traffic to new sites. No longer can we site around and wait for Google to let us into the circle of trust.

I look at this technique like a spy game. If I can’t get a pass into the Trustbox, I’ll just pay someone else who is already a member to go in and spread my gospel.

While your at it, make sure to go read every article listed on this page of Jim Boykin’s blog. There may be people who know as much about link building as he does, but few are willing to share that information as openly.

MSN has given us access to a new search operator LinkFromDomain as Oilman first posted. Example: LinkFromDomain:Xuru.com

Results seem pretty stale overall. If MSN would spend some time indexing something other than blogspot blogs, maybe they could update the rest of the web more often.

That said, this is an amazing new feature to add to your research tool set. Being able to compare incoming vs. outgoing linking patterns should prove for some interesting data. Ok where did I put the phone number to my local programmer.

Jeremy Shoemoney woke up to a big surprise. I feel for him. It happens to the best of us. I’m glad he was able to get everything back up and running pretty quick.

RustyBrick made an interesting post at on SERoundtable.

What if you had a semi-popular site and hacked the site yourself to get people talking about your site and linking to it?

With only a small following or community, this type of link bait could return a number of quick links without much effort. “Black Hat Link Bait” anyone? I’m almost tempted to try this on s popular site, but I’m too honest. I also have to ask myself what the consequences would be on my community if they found out it was a hoax.