2009 June 08

SES Toronto 09: SEO Then & Now

Posted by Eric Amzallag at 12:15 pm

Moderator: Amanda Watlington
Speakers: Anne Kennedy, Shari Thurow, Jeff Quipp

Okay, well missed the presentation of Anne Kennedy due to some Internet connection issues. Now that everything is up and running, here is the what has changed and stayed the same in the SEO world according to Shari and Jeff.

Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director of Omni Marketing Interactive is up:

Then:

Sergei Brin attended the second SES event and proclaimed that we can’t spam Google! Well he was wrong on that note, since there are plenty types of spam being on Google while their team is continuously trying to keep the index as clean and spam free as possible. While they have gained lots of ground over the years, Google’s anti-spam team still has their work cut out for them.

Keyword density was an important factor in obtaining better search engine positioning by stuffing the keywords we wanted to rank well for into the content.

Able to take over the top 30 search results for specific keywords. I was not involved in the web then, but would have been amazed to see a company take over the top 30 positions for a specific keyword.

Now:

Many more SEO’s but low on quality. As the internet marketing businesses have progressed over the years, there are more SEO companies but few with advanced skills and knowledge to make a difference for its clients.

Impossible to take over the search results and can have indented listings instead.

Keyword proximity

Linking strategy has changed by strategically placing contextual links to internal and/or external pages which now has alot more value than older linking techniques.

Same:

Indexed text and followed links still has great value in ranking well in the SERPs (will not be changing anytime soon)

All about links with targeted anchor text (internal & external).

Informational intent, users still use the web looking for answers to a question, quick facts, and making transactions (download, listen to music, look at photos, purchase items).

Jeff Quipp, CEO of Search Engine People is up:

Then:

5000+ search engines and webmasters needed to submit their sites to search engines manually.

Only the goals of the search engines, relevancy and relatedness has stayed the same.

Now:

Google dominates 80% of search marketplace in Canada

Big 3 (Google, MSN, Yahoo) have +90% of market share

Google provides a fantastic keyword tool when doing keyword research to help find keywords to target when optimizing a site.

Google now has a great anti-spam team always on the lookout for suspicious or purchased links to devalue them before your website obtains any value from them.

Write lots of content which will help in generating lots of long tail keyword traffic since it usually attracts the most targeted visitors.

Images and videos now being included in the SERPs as useful content.

Social media “has been put on steroids” where thousands of people can be made aware of your great content rather quickly through many social media circles who might also link back to you.

Same:

Onpage SEO which includes title tags, meta descriptions and meta keywords still have value.

Social media always existed through word of mouth

Continue to write great content to build links and attract more targeted vists.

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