SEO: An Executive's Guide to Strategy

Paul Mosenson
President, Founder
Nuspark Marketing
September 2013
A B2B Executive’s Guide To
Lead Generation SEO
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Or, What Are Those Guys Doing to Get Me More Leads, Sales,
& Conversions?

About NuSpark Marketing
• Founded in 2010; Team members average 25 years
of experience
• Philadelphia based, but works globally; virtual team
of experts
• Provides the process, consultation, strategy, tactics
for firms that need better lead generation, lead
nurturing, and funnel optimization.
• Founder Paul Mosenson is a long-term Media
Director and has been managing digital campaigns
for 15 years successfully
• Proven SEO techniques that drive leads and sales

What This SEO eBook Is and Is Not
What It Is What It’s Not
• An overview of SEO strategy &
tactics from a bird’s eye view
• An attempt to show most of
the major tasks of what an
SEO does, so there is a better
understanding of the value
• Focus on B2B lead generation
sites
• This is not a book of how-to.
But a book of what and why
(with some “how” elements)
• It’s not targeted to SEOs, but
rather B2B firms, marketing
executives, and those who wish
to understand the importance
of search engine marketing to
a firm’s bottom-line
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NuSpark Marketing SEO Approach
• We:
▫ Are technical analysts; making sure your website is optimized for
search engine bots and crawlers
▫ Are content consultants; making sure your words and paragraphs
are readable and searchable
▫ Are social media strategists; we understand the role of social
media optimization and its contribution to your search visibility
▫ Are public relations professionals; we create relationships with
influential authors, and pitch great content for publishing
▫ Are Internet detectives (aka link builders); we scour the web for
highly ranked sites that are willing to include a link to your
website and content.
▫ Are marketing consultants; we take pride in managing your
content properly for search engines, so that you generate
increased website traffic, leads, and sales
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Contents
• Why SEO
• Keyword Research
• Technical Optimization
• Content Optimization
• Social Media & SEO
• Mobile SEO
• Meet Panda & Penguin
• Link Building
• Measuring SEO
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Stating the case for search engine optimization
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Help me understand
the process, the
value, and the
strategy

Why B2B SEO
• Each new lead is valuable; an SEO campaign can
make a measureable difference to your bottom line
with just a few conversions.
• Challenge: Long life cycle from inquiry to sales, and
it can be difficult to measure conversion value
• However, a commitment to a combination of writing
valuable content mixed with proper SEO tactics will
grow your business in the long-run and generate
positive ROI
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Top Online Activities; Search and Email
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2 Reasons Why People Search
•I Want
•I Need
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Your Goal; be there with an answer to your prospect’s query

SEO Works for me…
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#1 organic
listing

How Important is SEO for Lead Generation
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2012 Marketing Sherpa
Survey; from their
LinkedIn Group
SEO is the most effective
tactic
But SEO is also the most
difficult tactic

SEO is the Biggest Impact on Lead
Generation
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Webmarketing123 survey of 500 marketers in 2012: State of Digital Marketing

B2B Buyers Use Search Frequently
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2012 Buyersphere Report

Tech B2B Customer Study: Search #1
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Search Starts When Prospects Have
Needs
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B2B Search Across the Funnel
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Your Goal: Get on the Short List
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Get to the first page; the importance of search engine rank
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Tell me the benefits of
getting to Google’s first
page for my keywords and
how you guys determine
your tactics

How Search Works
• Spiders or bots crawl your site and
builds indexes of URLs and
keywords on web pages
• The spider crawls your site by
reading it and follows links to other
pages within the site
• When a user performs a query, the
search engine combines on-site
factors such as keyword relevancy
and frequency with off-site factors
such as quality incoming links from
other sites that point to your site as
well as other factors to determine
your search ranking
• The result of the complex
calculation is your position within
the search engine rank result page
called SERP
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Search Results Vary by Query Type
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Google Rewards Relevancy
• Good quality relevant pages
• X
• Good quality relevant links
• =
• High Search engine rankings
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Google Most Important Ranking Factors
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Link quantity and
quality to your site
from authoritative and
trustworthy sites are
the most influential
factors in determining
search engine rank
Quantity and quality of
page links, including
internal links are
second most influential
Page level keyword and
content relevance are
also major key factors
in search engine rank

Factors That Will Be Influential in the Future
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From the
same MOZ
SEO survey:
ranking
influence for
future SEO
1. Site/page
value to
users
(quality
content)
2. Google+
and Google
Authorship

The Importance of Link Building
• Links from high quality websites will boost your
rankings and get you more site traffic
• Even if a link doesn’t get clicked, if it exists on a high
profile site you still receive “link juice” meaning it’s a
factor in your search engine ranking
• A “backlink” from a high quality, content-rich site signals
to Google that your website is relevant and trustworthy;
boosting your rank
• Internal site link building from keyword to content pages
makes it easier for Google to crawl your page for relevant
keywords. Sites that are easy to navigate from a user
perspective generally get higher rankings
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How Does Google Rank Quality Sites
• Sites with high PageRank tells
Google that the site linking to
you is popular and valuable
• Sites that link to you with
relevant content tells Google
that your site is authoritative
as well
• Sites that are trusted due to its
quality content that link to you
tells Google that your site is a
trusted resource as well
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• Sites that are popular,
authoritative, and
trustworthy in your
niche increase chances
of higher search
ranking.

PageRank; What’s That?
PageRank
• PageRank is Google’s formula
for ranking popular websites
(1-10). If you get a link from a
high PageRank site, that link
becomes a factor in
determining search engine
rank for your site.
• The more “votes” a site has
from other high PageRank
sites, the higher your own
PageRank
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The PageRank Scale
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0: Your site is not listed in the Google PageRank list
1: Your site is listed but you have minimal content
2: You’re starting to move up – keep working at it
3: Average. You’re providing good content and most websites fall in this range
4: Above average. Your site is separating itself and becoming authoritative
5: Good. Your site will usually show up on the first page of some searches.
6: Very good. Your content is being found and shared.
7. Great. Your site is among the leaders in its niche
8: Your site is doing fantastic; you’re a nationally known brand
9: You’re nearly at the top; like YouTube, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, Amazon.
10: You’ve reached the pinnacle of PageRank

Many Browser Extensions Exist To Measure Website Rank
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Click Through Rate by Organic Rank: Top
3 Positions Dominate Share of Clicks
Slingshot SEO Study Bruce Clay SEO Study
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More Research on First Page and
Position
Top 3 Positions Dominate
Clicks
First Page Gets 91.5% of
Traffic
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More click and traffic research from
Chitika, 2013

Choosing the right keywords that target your prospect’s needs
and providing the foundation for increased site traffic
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OK, I’m sold on the
importance of SEO for
driving leads and
visibility- so now what
keywords should I be
ranked for?

Keyword Strategy
• Keywords are the foundation
of SEO. The properly chosen
keywords are based on what
prospects look for and what
business solutions they are
looking for. That means if
your website content is written
with “marketing speak” or
“technical jargon” but not with
the prospect language in mind,
your site won’t rank as well
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The Goals of Keyword Research
• The goal is to find the ideal
mix of keywords and then
implement those keywords
into your website to increase
your search ranking and
generate increased traffic
• Ranking for keywords that are
frequently used by your
prospects to find what you do
can significantly increase
traffic and leads
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Choosing Keywords to Optimize For
• Start with a baseline. Look at your current analytics data and
get an idea of what keywords are working now in generating
traffic
• Brainstorm keywords that your prospects may use to find
your firm or solutions. Think like a buyer; what do they need,
and does your website have content that solves those needs?
• Look at competitor websites. What keywords are they
optimized for? Read their content, meta tags, and URLs.
• Use keyword research tools to track keyword search volume
and competition level. The best keywords to rank for have
moderate or high search volumes at low to moderate
competition
• Consider long tail terms (3 or more words); generally are less
competitive and bring more quality traffic to your site
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Keywords Through the Buying Cycle;
Target Terms Throughout the Funnel
• Interest: Broader terms; target
people who are generally browsing
for research. (i.e. Process
Machinery)
• Research: More specific. Prospect is
now refining his search in order to
become an informed buyer (i.e.
Process Machinery Options; Process
Machinery Vendors)
• Purchase: The prospect’s query is
now very specific as he is now ready
to buy. The terms are very “long
tail” (3 or more terms in query) and
could name your specific product or
brand.
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Long Tail Terms: Less Competition
Higher Conversion
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Keyword Tools Assist in Research
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Google’s Own Search Engine Features
Also Help In Keyword Determination
Google Suggest Related Searches
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Keep Track of Research on Templates
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Content template ebook
available on NuSpark
Marketing website,
www.nusparkmarketing.com

Keyword Mapping: Assign Keywords to
Pages
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Mapping keywords provides clarity for each page of content, and
can help organize an internal linking and site map strategy

Performing an audit to optimize the indexing of your website
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OK, so now you’re going
to show me some of the
technical things you do
to make sure my site is
optimized for search
engine crawling

Sign Up for Webmaster Tools
• Get warnings about the health
if your site (i.e. Malware)
• Find out how many pages are
being indexed
• Find out how many links are
pointing to your website
• Troubleshoot crawler and
indexing issues
• Discover search queries that
lead people to your site
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A Variety of Diagnostics and Site Reports Available on Webmaster Tools
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Track What Organic Position Your Site
or Blog Appeared for Specific Queries
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Report will give us
clues on which
keywords we need to
focus on as we
compare query
traffic with average
position

Dig into Specific Keywords and Track Changes in
Impressions, Clicks, and Position, by landing page
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Review Search Results of Top Pages; Pages with
low position but high CTR opportunity to build
links for that page
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Results of Author Rank: This Report Measures
Search Results of Blogs/Pages That Included
Google Authorship; On site and Guest Sites
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Submitting XML Site Map; so Crawlers
Can Find Your Pages
• Proper format and protocol
• Submit to webmaster tool
accounts
• Make sure up to date with
current pages
• Pages not appearing in the site
crawl need to be included if
necessary
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Site Speed; Website Should Load Fast
• Tools analyze load speed of
site
• Then will give you list or
recommendations for
performance optimization
• Coding issues, unnecessary
javascript, and other reasons
for bottlenecks can affect
speed, and page speed affects
rankings
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Robot.txt: Stop Google from Indexing Certain
Pages • Used to block certain pages,
confidential or private, from
being indexed
• Script as added to those
specific pages so that they are
not indexed (noindex) and
removed from search results
• Remove the code when the
page is ready to be indexed
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HTTP Status Codes Can Impact SEO
• Use the 301 redirect when
directing URLS from an old
site to a new site so that the
old site’s ranking history is
transferred to the new site
• Any 404 (file not found pages)
that have good content from
previous site pages should be
transferred to the 301
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URL Structure
• User friendly; less than 115
characters
• Include a relevant keyword in
the page name
• Subfolders over subdomains
• Avoidance of excessive
parameters
• Hyphens used to separate
words
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Avoid Duplicate Content
• Duplicate content is when the
same content appears on
multiple URLs
• When this occurs, search
engines find it difficult to rank
the best
• Search engines prefer to
results the original version,
unless a site with more
authority uses your content
• Therefore a site that uses dupe
content will suffer traffic
losses and lose ranktion?
Write original content
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We Use Copyscape to Identify Dupe
Content
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Domain Structure • Domains are the internal
addresses of websites, with
extensions like.com and .net
• Domains should be short and
easy to remember
• Words in domains separated by
hyphens
• For optimal site architecture,
domain structure should be
subfolder format
(www.me.com/blog) and not
subdomain (www.blog.me.com)
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Check the Proper Syntax of Your Website
• Most of websites are written in
HTML or (X)HTML language.
Just like any language,
sometimes there are coding,
spelling, or language errors.
• The Markup Validator checks
the syntax of web documents,
and gives developers and
programmers places to update
code so that browsers can
display web pages properly
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Title Tags; What Are Pages are About
• Title tag is the text that
describes what the particular
page is about; second most-
important SEO on page
element after content
• Keyword-rich; max length 70
characters
• Most important keywords at
front of tag
• Readable-impactful message
(it’s a first impression)
• Unique for each page of site
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ALT (Image) Tags and Header Tags;
Two More Places for Keyword Inclusion
ALT Tags Header Tags
• ALT Tags are short
descriptions of images on your
website. Crawler’s can’t read
images. ALT tags tell users
what the images are when they
hover those images with their
mouse, and is a good place to
include keywords that describe
the image for search engine
crawlers
• Header, or H Tags, are page
headlines and sub-headlines
that organize your page
content. The most important
is the 1st tag (H1) . Keywords
within these tags again assist
search engines with page
relevancy and rank
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Meta Descriptions; Now Generate Clicks
• Consider meta descriptions as
“ad” copy. Once you are
ranked, you still have to
persuade prospects to click.
• Should be persuasive, include
important keywords, and no
longer than 160 character
• Not an SEO ranking factor, but
a traffic generation factor
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Anchor Text/Internal Linking
• Anchor Text is a visible clickable link with in your
website that links to other relevant pages within the
site (or referencing content outside your site).
Outside sites can also use anchor text to link to your
page
• For a technical definition, Anchor text is the text
used to describe a link when turning it into a
hyperlink using HTML or XHTML coding.
• Anchor text should be an important keyword;
letting search engines know that the keyword and
the link has relevancy. Therefore- limit the use of
anchor text for “learn more” or “read more”
phrases, unless it’s read more about lead
generation, where “lead generation” becomes the
anchor text link
• Internal links in general increase site usability; they
help prospects navigate to relevant pages
• An optimal internal link system (site architecture)
helps crawlers easily index your website, and thus is
a contributor to higher search engine rank
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Hyperlink Formatting
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Canonical Tags
• Many times you might have
pages that link to the same
content:
▫ www.company.com
▫ www.company.com/index
▫ Company.com
• A canconical tag on your site
tells Google which page has
the original content so the
duplicates are not indexed.
This way, only one page gets
SEO credit, and the better
rankings you get
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Use these tags when:
•Multiple versions of home page
(as at the left)
•Ecommerce pages that show the
same content when you show
multiple views
•Mobile websites on subdomains
or directories that have same
content

See Your Website How a Search Engine
Sees It
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We use Browseo to
assess how search
engines see your
website, which helps
us optimize content
and tags to insure
keywords are being
utilized properly
and indexed.

Our Favorite On-Site Audit Tool, Screaming Frog, ; Gives
Us Detailed Site Info So We Can Fix Technical Issues
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View Website Crawl History
• The Internet Archive
Wayback Machine is a
searchable collection
of websites dating
back to 1996. By
tracking crawl history
you can see if any time
there were crawl or
indexing issues for
your domain
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We Stay Abreast of Latest Google
Indexing News
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Optimizing your website, blog, video and other content so
maximize your search engine visibility
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So you SEO folk can help me
with my blog and content?
Nice.
Oh, might be time for a simple
Google Authorship
explanation and how social
media fits into this process

Website Writing Strategy
• Write for the prospect’s needs;
your content should address
business challenges and how
you contribute to solving
them, in their language- not
yours
• Your content must include
primary and secondary
keywords; but if you go
overboard with too many
keyword inclusions, Google
will red flag the “keyword
stuffing”
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SEO Content Best Practices
• Page length: average about 300 words per page although no
strict guidelines
• Keywords should appear within first or first few paragraphs
• Write for skimmers and scanners; short paragraphs- short
sentences-bullet points
• Write clear and persuasive with the prospect in mind. Don’t
impress by using complicated business jargon, which can
distract the busy reader
• Strategically use the chosen long-tail keywords; remember the
longer-tail will have higher conversion rate
• Blog Posts, PDFs, Guides, and Videos all need to be optimized
with keywords and descriptions as well
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The Benefits of Blogging for SEO
• Helps engage prospects by communicating your niche
and persuading those prospects to dig deeper by reading
other posts and page content
• When promoting blogs on social media, email, and
syndication sites, traffic increases to your site
• Adding pages to your site increases the depth of your
overall website content; a contributing factor to rank
• Website freshness with new quality content is a signal to
search engines of an active website, another rank factor
• Quality content attracts inbound links
• Blogs are written in clean code with original content;
search engines prefer formats like blogs
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Blog Writing for SEO
• Choose keyword rich topics
• Lead with your keywords early
in your blog title
• Posts with numbers attract more
engaged readers (“5 types of…”)
• Targeted keywords in your blog
should first appear in first
sentence or two, and sprinkled
tactfully within the post, without
overdoing it.
• Follow page title and meta
description best practices, and
promote via social networks and
other communication tactics
• Use internal linking strategy and
link other keywords in the post
to key content pages on your
website
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Google Authorship
• Google Authorship is how
Google ties in Google+ user
profiles with content
ownership across the user’s
blogs and articles contributed
to websites. When you’re
identified as the content’s
owner, your search visibility
increases (photo inclusion)
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Google Authorship Benefits
• Higher Click through rate on search listings,
because your Google+ profile picture appears
with your content, making your post stand out
• Because Google authorship recognizes authority,
your content is more trusted; and that generates
increased site traffic as well
• By adding the “rel=author” tag to your
biography on your website or blog, Google sees
that, and your posts are indexed faster
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“How to” Alert: Google Authorship as a Guest Blogger
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• Set up Google+ Profile
• When you send a bio along with an article
to a blog that accepts guests, they need to
link your name in your bio with a
rel=author tag. Below example of tag:
• <a title=”Author: Your Name on Google+”
href=”https://plus.google.com/profilenumber?re
l=author”rel=”author“>Google+</a>
• Link the blog to the contributor section of
your Google+ profile
• Verify the connection with Google’s rich
snippet testing tool
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tool
s/richsnippets

So Now There Is Author Rank
• So now there is Author Rank,
which is a measure for Google to
understand which author is
more popular, influential and
trust-worthy, and whose content
can be given more importance
(and higher rank).
• Author Rank is a Google
algorithm combining factors
such as Google+ engagement,
Google+ social activity, sites you
have contributed content to,
number of Google+ circles you
are in, # of comments per post,
and more
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Generating More Traffic with Author
Rank
• Write high quality content that your readers will want to share
• Do keyword research and make sure your article titles
answers what your prospects are looking for
• Increase social activity across channels such as Twitter,
Facebook, and YouTube
• Engage with people on Google+. Share content, comment on
content, +1, etc. Use Google+ consistently
• Add influential audiences to circles and engage with them
• Take part in communities; encourage sharing
• Engage and respond to comments on your blog posts
• Increase guest blogging with quality content on quality
websites
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Rich Snippets
• Rich Snippets are additional
lines of information that
appear within a Google search
result. Rich snippets help
users discover sites relevant to
their searches.
• Because rich snippets make
listings stand out, click
through rate increases (up to
30%!)
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Types of Rich Snippets
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How Do Rich Snippets Get There? (Tech
Alert)
• Check these resources
• https://support.google.com/webmaste
rs/answer/99170
• http://raventools.com/blog/an-seos-
guide-to-schema-org/
• http://blog.hubspot.com/how-to-use-
google-rich-snippets
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Optimize PDFs for Search
• PDFs are indexed also. Make
sure texts within PDFs are
plain text, not in the form of
images
• Under File-Document-
Properties within a PDF the
File name, Title, Subject, and
Description should follow SEO
best practices, containing
keywords
• Links within the PDF may go
to other relevant pages on your
website
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Optimize Presentations; All Google
Indexed
PowerPoint
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Add keyword-rich titles and
text within Document
Properties
Same thing on Slideshare for
each presentation; keyword-
rich titles, description, and
keyword tags.

Optimize YouTube Videos
• Pick a keyword phrase (or max 2)
and target that phrase to a
particular video, then put that
phrase in your video title,
description, and file name. The
description should also include a
website link and call to action. As
usual, no keyword stuffing, but
give audiences value
• Use keyword tags to increase
searchability
• Create a video transcript and or
YouTube captions for further
video engagement and Google
indexing
• Try to use a compelling video
thumbnail that will attract
audiences to the video content
• Share videos on social media and
blogs to generate increased views
and shares
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Embed Videos and Generate Video Site
Maps
• Have a video content page on
your website and embed your
videos on the page, which
should also include text that
describes the video
• Embedded YouTube videos can
improve YouTube rank as
number of video views
contributes to video rank
• Creating a video site map via
Google Webmaster Tools makes
it easier for Google to find and
index your videos.
• Tech alert: Use Schema.org
markup language to better
optimize the video indexing.
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Google+ & SEO Together
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Personalized search is a default on Google; A prospect’s search results,
provided he is logged into Google, is affected by posts that are engaged
with and shared by audiences in his Google+ social circles.
Google+ and Google
authorship (results with
photos) consistently rank
high in search results if the
topic is relevant to a user’s
query.

How Social Affects Search
• Tweeting content cuts
indexing time; Google bots
and crawlers find your content
quicker
• Content that is shared tells
Google your content is fresh,
giving you a temporary
increase in ranking
• A high level of social
engagement and social
mentions tells search engines
that your content is authentic
and valuable to readers; a
ranking signal as well
• Quality content with links on
social sites generates backlinks
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Social Media/SEO Tactics
• Add Google+ and sharing
buttons to your blog and most
important content pages
• Share content on a Google+
company page
• Build Google+ c0mmunity and
encourage folks to +1 content
• Promote original content on
Twitter and Facebook, and
encourage links to your
website/blog
• Optimize your social media
profile pages with important
keywords within your “About”
sections
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Social Bookmarking for SEO
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• A social bookmark is a link that people post to
social sites for others to see because they find
your content valuable. Your content is thus
saved on these social bookmarking sites where
it can easily be shared.
• Bookmarking sites generally have high
PageRank, so you get quality backlinks, and
increase your own PageRank
• Content on bookmarking sites can increase
your website traffic as well as obtaining new
readers and prospects
• Pinterest and Twitter can be considered social
bookmarking sites. Most popular are Digg,
Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
• Social bookmarking is free; tactic is to
promote valuable non-promotional content

Executive’s Use of Mobile Rising
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B2B Executives are Comfortable Doing
Business on a Mobile Device
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Mobile Traffic Continues to Grow
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Three Types of Mobile Sites
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Mobile SEO Best Practices
• Google prefers one-URL responsive design websites, or, sites
that work across all device types
▫ Page load time needs to be speedy, however, for good user
experience
▫ Responsive sites are easier to develop, and you only have to
manage content on one website only
▫ Since there is one URL, SEO link juice and page authority is
preserved
• Separate URL for mobile only makes sense if you wish a
different mobile experience than desktops. This is where
mobile redirects need to be set up correctly
• Use meta data within source code to ensure that mobile pages
are mapped and optimized for mobile search. More tech info
here: http://searchengineland.com/the-definitive-guide-to-
mobile-technical- seo-166066
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Google’s search engine ranking algorithms that are constantly
being updated to weed out bad seo practices and ensure that
only the best, most relevant results show for user queries
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I’ve heard of these
Google animal terms-
please explain

Panda and Penguin Defined
Panda Penguin
• Google Panda is the algorithm
changes focused on filtering
out websites with low-quality
content in search results. The
most notably affected sites
were article networks and
submission sites that hosted
lots of ads next to poor article
content.
• Google Penguin is the algorithm
changes focused on filtering out
websites who have implemented
tactics against Google
Webmaster Guidelines to boost
their ranking in search. This
includes sites that have over-
optimized both on-site and off-
site SEO. Keyword stuffing, link
buying, overuse of keyword-
based anchor text, are just a few
of many red flags and indicators
to Google that a website has
attempted to manipulate search
rankings.
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Has Your Site Been Affected?
We Use This Tool from Barracuda
Digital UK
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Avoiding the Panda/Penguin Penalties
• Update your website content
consistently. Remove any low quality
content. Create quality content
• Avoid any duplicate content within
your site as well as for link building
• Don’t be “aggressive” with keyword
inclusions in your site; write naturally
• Evaluate and optimize website user
experience (a la browser compatible,
site speed)
• Vary link building strategy across
many kinds of quality sites; avoid
fixed patterns
• Vary anchor text and interior links
within your website content; avoid one
keyword-one page strategy
• Using a backlink tool or webmaster
tools, review and remove any links
from low quality sites, link farms, or
spammy pages
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Strategies to generate quality links to your website; meaning
reputation enhancement, higher rankings, and increased online
visibility
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So much of your time is
with link building.
Explain what you SEO
guys are really doing to
increase my rankings
and website traffic

Benefits of Link Building
• Quality links boost your search
engine rankings
• Quality links brings new
prospects to your site
• Quality links establish you and
your firm as leaders in its field
• Links from guest articles may be
shared via social, bringing even
more quality links
• Quality links build value over
time; your credibility and trust
increases
• Link building creates
relationships with influential
though leaders which could lead
to potential referrals
• Quality links increase your
website Pagerank over time
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A link obtained from an
external website or blog is
called a Backlink

Link Opportunities
• Guest blog posts or guest contributions such as
industry blogs and news sites; Commonly called
Blogger Outreach, the concept of developing
relationships with bloggers to offer them something
of value is the hardest but most effective method of
generating authoritative backlinks
• Blog comments, forum discussions, industry social
networking sites
• Editorial mentions within industry articles
• Listing inclusions in online general business and
niche vertical industry directories
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Finding Backlink Opportunities;
Start Researching & Compiling Potential Lists
• Top 30-50 bloggers in your industry
• Niche bloggers covering specific or related
industry topics
• Online trade websites- names of editors and
contributors
• Industry associations
• Links obtained from competitors (using link
research tools-next page)
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Sample Tools We Use for
Competitive Link Research
Ahrefs.com Open Site Explorer
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Research & Find Blogs with Online
Tools
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Prospecting Guest Blog Sites with Google
• Type the following options into Google
and review results
▫ Keyword or industry phrase with
“guest blog” or “guest contributor”
in query
intitle:guest post or contributor,
where intitle means there’s a
keyword in title tag, a la “guest
post”
inurl:guest post or contributor,
where inurl means there’s a
keyword in the URL, a la
“contributor”
▫ Also, try Google Alerts for
keywords you want to rank for;
scan blog search results
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Alexa Ranking: The Popularity of A Site
• Alexa provides traffic
data and global ranking
for thousands of sites
• Each website is ranked-
From 1 to billions- lower
the better
• You can measure your
site vs. competitors
• It doesn’t really affect
search rankings, but
does provide another
guide in choosing sites
to obtain backlinks from
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Identifying High Quality Link Opportunities from
Potential Blog Sites and Your Initial Research
• Page Rank of URL (higher the better)
• Traffic estimates from Alexa.com or Compete.com
• Study the overall content and see if the ideal readership for the topics is
similar to your target audience
• Social Media Activity (high followers and high engagement)
• Inbound links to the site or blog (using the link research tools)
• Targeted keywords within target URL, page title, and text
• Quality and relevance of the website’s content
• Robust blog commenting on site
• Are the articles/posts updated frequently
• Site owners and other contributors listed within site look reputable
• Well structured look/feel with no spammy outbound links
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By ranking your potential targets based on the criteria above, your outcome
should be a short list of potential sites to communicate with

Blogger Outreach Communication
• Do research; review the kinds of topics that exist on the
targeted blogger’s site so you may cite them in your outreach
• Follow the blogger site on social media and subscribe to RSS
feeds; mention the blogger in your own posts; share content
via social
• Email the blog owner with an outreach letter; personalize it,
promise to deliver value, keep it concise, show that you’ve
read their blog, and have clear contact information
• Use an outreach email subject line that answers “why should I
read” or “why is my topic relevant”
• Keep track: bloggers who respond, bloggers who publish, links
received, comments, shares and traffic received from your
published posts
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Two Outreach Templates
Introduction Email Guest Article Publish Request
Subject Line: Guest Blog Intro; We Have Great Content for Your Readers
Dear Blog Owner
Introductory Paragraph
• Flattery statement: I enjoy your articles and do share them, or I am an avid
reader of your blog
• Who I am (or who I represent)
• Why your readers would be interested in me (or my client)
• Why my content would be ideal for your blog (or his/her content)
Second Paragraph
• Partnership choices
▫ Feature me in a Q&A format with one of your bloggers or yourself
▫ Allow me to be an ongoing guest blogger because of my credentials
▫ Suggest you can also be a guest blogger on my blog; a win-win for both
of us
▫ At some point, I’d like to be quoted within one of your blogs, especially
if you write about…
Final Paragraph
• Action statement
▫ I’ll reach out to you in next couple of weeks with a an article for your
review
• Contact info for any questions or ideas
Regards,
Paul Mosenson
For Mr. Blogger
Subject Line: Article Idea or Your Blog; Topic
Dear Blog Owner
First Paragraph
• Restate Flattery statement: I enjoy your articles and do share them, or I am
an avid reader of your blog
• Reminder who I am
• Introduce attached article
• Why the article is ideal for readers
• Request it be published nicely
Second Paragraph
• Thank blogger for the consideration
• Remind that the attached includes a Bio, and a couple of links (that are
embedded or marked)
• Also include in the attached is a Google authorship (REL-author) tag for the
link to my name
• Ask to be updated on publishing date, so I can share via my social channels
Regards,
Paul Mosenson
For Mr. Blogger
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Broken Link Building
• Broken link building is the
process of finding a
competitor’s broken link (or
404 page) on a website
resource or directory page, and
asking the webmaster or site
owner to link to your site
instead.
• Website owners do not like
broken links, so SEO does
them a favor by finding the
broken link, and at the same
time, suggesting a new link
instead; to your website.
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Using Google to Find Potential Pages
That May Have Broken Links
• In query, choose an industry
broad but relevant category
keyword, and match with a
prospecting phrase in order to
find potential directory pages-
example “SEO resources” and
“SEO links”
• To the right are example
queries that would accompany
the phrase “SEO resources” in
the Google search box
• Intitle:sites
• Intitle:resources
• Intitle:links
• Inurl:sites
• Inurl:resources
• Inurl:links
• Phrase match terms that are
before the terms Links,
Resources, Sites:
▫ Recommended
▫ Useful
▫ Favorite
▫ Related
▫ Suggested or
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Use Tools to Find Broken Links on Sites
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Bulk Link Analysis Tools
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A number of online tools exist for bulk
uploading of URLS and determining
PageRank, Domain Authority, and Link
Checkers. These help us choose the sites
to target for link building (guest blog
and broken link building)

Broken Link Building Summary
• Find Directory/Resource Pages on high quality websites using
Google search parameters as shown earlier
• Use broken link tools to find those broken links, and see if those
broken links are your competitors
• After finding pages with broken links, determine if the page is worth
the effort by reviewing its content and PageRank and Authority
• Find the site owner’s email and contact them with a helpful note:
▫ Explain what you found that was broken, whether it’s within a listing or
some content, and why it needs to be replaced
▫ Suggest a replacement, your link or your content, in replace of the older
content
▫ Keep track and follow up
• Detailed Resources
▫ http://moz.com/blog/broken-link-building-guide-from-noob-to-novice
and
▫ http://moz.com/blog/the-broken-link-building-bible
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Other Link Building Tactics
• Good quality’ non-spammy press releases that
provide relevant information; submit via online
PR networks like PRWeb and PitchEngine
• Major online website directories like DMOZ and
YAHOO’s site index
• Association, and industry directory sections of
high quality content sites
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Key metrics to track to gauge success of search engine
optimization efforts, using Google Analytics
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Yes, show me some ways
you are measuring your
results, especially for a B2B
site. Prove your value!

Some Important Metrics to Track
• Unique Visitors: A unique visitor visits your website
once, and thus is a more accurate measure of website
visitors so that repeat visitors don’t skew your traffic
data.
• Bounce Rates: Measures the number of website visitors
who view a single page on your website then exits. Poor
bounce rates (over 40%) signal that your website is
poorly designed, the content is low quality, or the
message doesn’t relate to the visitor.
• Conversion Rates: Measures the number of visitors that
perform a defined action on your website. High
conversion rates mean we are driving targeted traffic,
and the content and design of your site are effective to
drive leads or sales.
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Track How Many Pages are Being
Indexed
by Google
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Track the number of pages
you have indexed
monthly. The more pages
your site has indexed, the
better chance the site will
rank for multiple
keywords.
To track this, either go to
Google and enter
“site:yourwebsite” or
measure indexed pages in
your Google Webmaster
account.

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A showcase of custom report templates that
produce reports that measure SEO trends

Non-Branded New Visitor Traffic
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Track new visitor and
conversion growth for
keywords that do NOT
include your company
name
This custom report
measures website
engagement and
conversions for organic
keywords, and with
filters, excludes any
query that includes a
branded (company)
name, and the “not
provided” keyword

Referral Site Traffic (minus Social)
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Track growth of
website visits from
referring sites (3rd
party websites)
Exclude social media sites to get a
truer picture of what blogs and
websites that feature your content or
listings generated clicks to your site.
Exclude Regular Expression and
include all social media sites separated
by pipes
Likewise you can include just a group
of specific sites you targeted for
backlinks, again separate with pipes in
the custom report filter section

Landing Page Organic Traffic
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This report shows you how
many pages are generating
organic traffic from search
engines, and how engaging
those entrance pages are.
Track the number, and
track bounce rates to
determine if certain pages
need to be optimized
(content and design) for
better engagement

Keyword Conversions
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This report
measures the
growth and amount
of keywords that
drive website visits
and conversions
Utilize filters here
as well to weed out
branded terms and
{not provided) if so
desired

Affect of Organic Clicks That Assist Conversions from
Other Traffic Sources
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GA’s Multi-channel
funnel report can
measure the affect
organic search has on a
future organic search
that becomes a
conversion or has on a
conversion from another
source
GA conversions are based
on last click metrics, but
this report measures the
“assisted” conversions,
again those sources that
contributed to another
site visit that converted

Conversion Attribution Model;
Estimating Total Organic Conversions
• Determine attribution model, or, what percent credit you
give an assisted conversion that lead to a last click
conversion. For this example, we use 25%
• Using the multi-funnel conversion report, compile a time
period’s last-click conversions from organic traffic with
assisted conversions from organic traffic (that lead to a
last click conversion via another source). Weight the
results:
• Example:
▫ Last click organic conversions: 100; worth 100%, or 100
▫ Assisted organic conversions: 60; worth 25%, or 15
▫ Therefore, total conversions generated via organic traffic is
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A Model of SEO ROI for B2B Sites
• First, let’s gather data, with example metrics
below. OK to estimate.
▫ Website organic conversions from SEO start to
minimum 6 months later (again, last click plus
assisted conversions)
▫ Website Inquiries to Marketing Qualified Lead: 50%
▫ Marketing Qualified Lead to Sales Opportunities: 33%
▫ Sales Opportunities to Closes: 50%
▫ Average Sale Value: $10,000
▫ Margin: 40%
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Formula Based on Example Metrics
• Organic conversions before SEO; last 6 month average:
600
• Organic conversions in 6 months: 900
• Incremental organic conversions: 300
• MQL: 150
• Sales Opportunities: 50
• Closes: 25
• Revenue generated: $250,000
• Margin: 40%
• Profit: $150,000
• ROI: (Profit-SEO Cost)/SEO Cost
• SEO Cost = Sum of all activity in labor as well as content
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Other Measurement Considerations
• Keyword rankings ; valuable if those keywords
are driving quality traffic and conversions;
otherwise we would reassess those keywords or
evaluate the content of your website
• PageRank. Is your website increasing over time?
• Lifetime Value and Branding Affects. The
previous ROI calculation was based on hard
numbers. The long term affect of content
marketing and thought leadership builds brand
and incremental conversions over time
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Our Values
• We fully immense ourselves with your marketing goals, target
audiences, and culture so that we truly understand your business
• We focus on 24/7 customer service. We treat every client the same;
no pecking order. No matter how large or small, every single
relationship is equal in our view
• We spend your budget like its our own; our goal is to maximize
investment-seek the best deals, the best promotions, the best added-
value. We strive to drive results like no other firm
• We will continually optimize and audit to make sure you’re getting
the absolute best value
• We pride ourselves on win-win relationships. By creating
professional one-to-one relationships with vendors, we typically get
increased value and that means increased ROI for you

Questions?
• Contact Paul Mosenson of NuSpark
Marketing
• pmosenson@nusparkmarketing.com
• 610-812-2725
• www.nusparkmarketing.com

Acknowledgements
• MOZ
• Search Engine Land
• Matt Bailey, SiteLogic
• Website Magazine
• Bruce Clay
• Lunametrics
• Kissmetrics
• Content Marketing Institute
• Baldy Dog
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