Duplicate Content Issues

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Your same content in a different language does not equate to duplicate contentDetect search engines and strip out session ID’s and other things like click tracking IDs for them. (not a shady form of cloaking)Block possible session IDs with wildcards in robots.txtUse same parameter order in dynamic URLs or it causes duplicate content301’s take approximately 6-12 months for full effect in some search engines

PHP and Perl

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Hackers can hack a live session if the session URL gets indexed

Landing Page Optimization

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Landing page testing: test about 3-7 elements of an ad. Out of 100 ads only test about 8.PPC ads: URLs to subpages usually perform better than TLDsSegment different landing pages for different audiences: paid/organic/affiliate visitorsDon’t always give them exactly what they want on the landing page or they won’t be enticed to go further.

Enterprise Level SEO

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Use load balancing and progressive enhancementUse section-based sitemapsArchive time-based URLs

Local/Mobile

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Mobile - Detect device and redirect accordingly30-50% of search queries have geo-modifiers80% of mobile searchers made some kind of contact to company

SEO Design & Site Structure

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Design for Firefox - Tweak for IE/SafariBlock testing folders w/robots.txt

Hosting Issues

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Use different webhosts, class C IP addresses, and registrant names in a linked site network99% up uptime is still over 87 hrs of downtime over the course of the yearStatic IP’s are best. Can still get static IPs on shared hosting accounts.60ms or better is a good server response time (effects the domain a lot) even though Matt Cutts said it doesn’t.Use ISAPI ReWrite on IIS Servers

Serve up a cloaked page to mischievous competitors

Run new IP addresses through tools to check if it’s blacklisted anywhere

Use subdomains on penalized sites since they are treated as a different entity

Action Based Copy writing

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A minimum of 250 words per page is a good rule of thumbDon’t necessarily include your company name in your title. Test it.Speak to the audience: solve problems, answer questions, provide informationHome Page - Use general keyphrases; Sub pages - Use specific keyphrasesSelling Tips from Aristotle: opening, empathy, solution, action

Why we buy? To save money, To gain respect, To be attractive (appeal to these aspects)

International Search Engine Optimization

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International PPC is cheap so take advantage now!Weakening of US dollar means more buying power internationallyBe aware of the culture, language, and law of other countries. For example: German has special characters in their language and an “impressum” which is a law stating a company has to have a company name, certain tax things or they can get sued.Japan is better for e-commerce, China is better for branding.Baidu.com holds 60% of the search market in China

Translators are not copywriters!

Some words can’t translate over (ex: holidays vs city breaks)

E-Commerce Optimization

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2-column center or left are the top two preferred designs but no one size fits all. For electronics, 3-column is better. For clothing, 2-column is better.Keep “add to cart” above the foldShow price clearly.Site search can increase conversion by over 500%The “no results” page is important. Recommend popular search results, best sellers, and other category choices here.

Establish trust in company, products, and web site.

Guarantee satifcation.

Have a shipping, security, and privacy policy.

Images are what sell the products! Use unique non-OEM pics to differentiate. Use multiple images.

7 habits:
1) Design for success
2) Search for sales
3) Build trust
4) Keep buying simple
5) Publicize your brand
6) Images say a thousand words
Climb the ranks

Be an expert. Establish an authoritative position

Express opinions.

Provide more info.

Use OEM offline content from brochures, boxes, etc.

Call vendors to get links.

Cross-selling CAN be bad in some cases.

Test stripping out the navigation in the cart pages. The less choices the easier it is to push them down the conversion funnel.

Competitive Intelligence

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Check competitor’s clients by seeing if they have sites hosted on their same IP. You can do reverse IP lookups at domaintools.comReferrals through “link:”, or any Google operator as well as Google cache, are competitorsSet up a spider trap by hiding a link on your page with CSS from visitors but knowing that spiders will crawl it from the source code. Collect the referral IP’s and block them through .htaccess

Tools of the Trade

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Set SEO for Firefox options to only allow to crawl 10 queries deep or you will get your IP flagged by Yahoo.