Advanced SEO Tips & Techniques
This post was made Jun 30, 2008 by Carlos del Rio
Last week I saw an influx of Advanced SEO posts. I think that they are all off the mark in one sense or another. To me they all seem like this guy:
What Shimon Sandler thinks is Advance SEO:
An Excerpt:
“A silo is a vertical page linking design. You have your landing page, or your main page, at the top of the silo and underneath this page you have pages which support your main landing page theme.”
Siloing is a very powerful method to get ranked on Google. There are a lot of things to do that by themselves have little weighting, and all those little things add up for a powerful punch. But, siloing is a power punch all by itself. It’s an advanced SEO technique that is a heavyweight amongst SEO techniques.
I really don’t think that siloing is that advanced. It is probably the first thought in many peoples minds when they first learn that your internal structure can effect your link profile. I spent the entire post thinking “yes and…” in the end there are some good links to other sites that tackle siloing, but the technique by itself is not advanced. There are variations on the concept that are more complicated, and subtle, that compensate for the loss of functionality, but those are less talked about for a reason. You have to understand how people are using your site before you can implement anything that is actually advance. Techniques are not inherently advanced.
Shimon does offer a moment that could surpass rehashing Lisa Barone here:
There are several ways to create silos:
1) Tagging
2) Categories
3) Directories
4) Related pages plugin
5) ONLY link to landing pages using your Target keyword.
6) Create a mini-sitemap on each page within your silo.
But, he chose not to elaborate on these pieces so I will to give you a better leg up if you are following his advice.
Tagging, Categories & Directories
These all create pagination issues. If you want to take full advantage of these you have to create technical or architectural controls to limit the necessity of cross-categorization and tag groups. You have to balance between content control and structure to avoid driving your visitors to more accessible sites. People are accustom to hierarchy, but if they have to remember how your particular site categorizes then you are loosing value.
Related Pages Plugin
This works great if you are blogging, but it is essentially the opposite of siloing. For siloing you should amend this to related categories, or tags.
ONLY Link with Target Phrase
No, don’t do that. If you only ever link with one phrase you are putting all of your eggs in a single basket. The exception is if you have an EXCEPTIONAL piece of content that is getting lots of external links — and thus anchor text from somewhere else.
Create a Mini Sitemap
This is a good tip for maintaining link equity across your categories, parlaying strong pages into link value distribution areas. It also side-steps a major flaw in siloing — the loss of navigability.
Lisa Barone thinks Advanced SEO is:
That’s right, Advanced is White. Um, well, it’s a cute picture; but no White Hat is not Advanced SEO. White Hat SEO is part of the advanced tool set. Techniques are not advanced, tools are not advanced, she says get back to basics. I agree, get good at the basics, then start thinking about what those basics mean. Just because Web 2.0 is the buzzword du jour doesn’t mean that it is worthless, it just isn’t worth the hype.
Go read the comments for some interesting insights into the search community’s mindset.
What SMX thinks Advanced SEO is:
photo credit: fabiogis50
Ok, that is tongue-in-cheek. Black Hat is most definitely not Advanced SEO, because it is just tools and tricks. It is also quick, glamorous and the kind of thing people don’t talk about. The perfect thing to “Give Up” because it is going to give out soon even if you don’t get good karma for outing yourself.
Lisa Ditlefsen:
I think the stamp “black hat seo” should be based on INTENT not necessarily technique. Still with me? Basically if you are doing SEO for a (new) site that is in a highly competitive market, it is NOT going to be possible to rank and gain traffic on a well constructed and content optimised site alone. That’s just a fact. Buying a few links and investing in a proper link building campaign is something you have to do to get into the really competitive market. Unless you are not planning on ranking before 2048!!!
I don’t agree that intent has anything to do with Black Hat. You are either working with in guidelines or not. I do agree that a very important SEO skill is properly assessing what techniques are necessary
What Micheal Martinez thinks is Advance SEO:
His Hardcore SEO Tips are that fun tip of the iceberg tips that can help you eek out the most from your campaigns. But are those last bits what qualifies as advanced?
20 Hard Core SEO Tips – The List
1. Redesign your Web site once or twice a year.
2. Add 5 pages of content to your site every week.
3. Change the titles on your least successful pages twice a year.
4. Stop using keywords in your URLs.
5. Stop using keywords in your titles.
And the list goes on. But, while the exercises he suggest will help you hone your skills you are not going to come out the other side as an Advanced Search Marketer.
What Carlos Del Rio thinks is Advanced SEO
photo credit: EricGjerde
Advanced SEO is not what techniques you use.
So what are your choices and when do they fail?
- White Hat – fails when everyone is well optimized.
- Black Hat – fails soon after it is discovered, especially when you get caught.
- Paid Search – fails when you can’t support the upfront investment.
- Usability – fails when no one sees you.
- Social Media – fails when you are an ass about it. Don’t be that person!
- Design – fails when you are too lazy to build it correctly.
- Analytics – fails when you don’t know what to do with them.
You can look at tips all day long in all of these categories and still not have anything that qualifies as advanced knowledge. Advanced SEO is not tips and tricks, it is wise application of common sense and tools. You are entering into advanced when you can identify what tool to use where. Darren Slatten wrote a YouMoz post titled “Advanced White Hat SEO is All About Deception” that has a small kernel of truth in a big pile of fluff meant to bait controversy. The truth is: “Advanced white hat SEO doesn’t require an understanding of the Webmaster Guidelines–it requires an understanding of human psychology…” (understanding the guidelines is important for basic SEO, so don’t skip it)
Figuring out how your competitors and visitors play the game is an important skill in developing the subtlety that it takes to implement advance campaigns. Learn when to use which skills, and when to change tactics. If you can’t effectively change focus you will be beaten by competitors that make all of their search marketing work in unison.
If you want to be advanced you need to learn at least 3 skills from the list above — and make friends with someone who understands the others.
The number one hands down most Advanced SEO Technique you can learn is this:
Stop looking for tips and start working on your site.
Great post, Carlos.
I’ve been nodding off on a lot of the usual SEO debates lately. I just see so much bull crap being slung around – the “field” is one that has a low bar of entry since anybody with a computer and internet access can assume the title of “SEO.” And everyone has their own definition of what SEO is.
I agree with your rebuttals of the attemps to define “Advanced SEO” you’ve cited above.
To me, spending time debating definitions in this way is an utter waste – which is one of the reasons I’ve made myself scarce lately. I stopped seeing the value in much of the discussion.
White hat, black hat, paid search, usability, social media, design, analytics – these are all invaluable tools, means to the end of leveraging the web to build attention, participation, revenue. There’s just no clear way to pin down their relation to “advanced SEO” – mainly because that term is a shell for whatever web development / internet marketing fodder any Joe Schmoe wants to shove inside for the sake of argument.
Maybe someone will drop me a line when there’s a consensus on the definition of “advanced SEO” or even just “SEO”…but I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for your thoughts Mike. A number of people have pointed out that SEO is a stupid phrase. We don’t optimize search engines. We are never going to come up with a good definition for a phrase that literally depicts something we don’t do.
I am a fan of “Search Marketing” because that is actually what we do — market using search engines, or Online Marketing for those things that aren’t search.
In the strictest sense Advanced Search Engine Optimization is done by people like Udi Manber (head of Google search quality team), not any search marketer.
I agree – I think Search Marketing and Online Marketing are far better terms.
Maybe I’m just bitter because I’ve worked for a few agencies now and the way salespeople throw around “SEO” in conversation is somewhat nauseating. I’ve heard projects characterized as an “add SEO jobs.” Which has no meaning at all beyond convincing the client that we have some secret laboratory where we can mix up a custom batch of “SEO” and administer it to their website in measured doses. I’ve heard salespeople say things like, “well, we don’t want to give away the secret recipe, but typically our work involves keyword research, optimizing your title tags and achieving the correct keyword density on the page.” Knowing that probably 90% of “SEO,” or what determines search rankings, occurs off the page it’s hard to stomach that kind of nonsense.
I used to work with a Sales Manger that would say “Were going to do the SEOs to your site and get you to the top of Google.” He also talked about PPCs — “If you get the PPCs you will start making sales immediantly(sic).”
To me “If you get the PPCs,” sounds like a disease. Mike, send me an e-mail we should have a more substantive conversation off-blog.
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Great info my friend, SEO seems to be a niche that is becoming a huge trend among fellow developers. I work for a company who primarily digs into the seo niche. It seemingly makes for great product to market to corporate company’s.
Thanks for the great post.
SEO is becoming a giant playground, trouble is everybody can do it.
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I agree 100%. So many claiming to be SEO experts and hardcore SEO. User experience first that Search Engines. Work within the guidelines and stop trying to trick the SEs.