Adam Lasnik SeminarThe highlight of the Search Camp was having Adam Lasnik all the way from Google. Isn’t it ironic to have someone from Google for a Search Conference! He is Google’s first Search Evangelist and broadens the company’s online and offline communications with Webmasters.
It was not a formal presentation that Adam did, but it was a Q&A session where anybody could just shoot out questions and he would answer. This was more beneficial. You know why!
There were a lot of interesting questions. One of it was “Is Wikipedia a partner with Google? Does it pay something to Google? Why is it that it always ranks top no matter what kind of SEO you do for your site?” All had a good laugh and Adam said that there were no tie ups between the companies.
Regular users who search for information love Wiki due to brand recognition factors. Something unique about Wiki is that it has pretty nice titles. Lot of companies, have the company name and other details, but information on what the company basically is and does, is not present. Wikipedia is organic and gives the users what they are searching for and hence it is ranked top.
With regard to local search, he said having content in the local languages would be a good idea, not just for Google’s sake, but to give the users a personalized touch. He also said that adding local addresses would also be good.
When it came to sites, he said “If you are not using XML site map, do it!” It is also necessary that one needs to check the crawl errors in the Webmaster tools when site modifications were done.
He gave a lot of tips and cleared a lot of doubts that were on top on the minds of people with regard to Google Search. The discussions were not just during the session, but continued on during the informal time too during lunch and later.
The right kind of Marketing Mix during Recession by Kalaivani Sadagopan
Kalaivani Sadagopan, General Manager, Caratlane, who has tonnes of experience in Marketing, handled a real hot topic for the Season ‘Marketing Mix during Recession’.
She started by defining what a recession is in terms of business. She then spoke about Customer Behaviour during these times. Customers are more cautious and are likely to postpone purchases. They negotiate for concessions and seek less expensive products.
What we need to do is focus on Results, results and more results. We need to work on programs that generate leads and focus on activities that deliver better response. We need to make the Rupees longer and that can be done by bidding lower on PPC Campaigns and negotiate with the vendors.
She said that if you noticed, divorce rates are lower now during the recession times. Why? Because a new relationship may cost more! The same applies to Marketing. Work on your existing customers. Relationship Marketing is well known to be very important but at times neglected. Reward the loyalty of your existing customers. Have a constant communication with them.
Don’t cut price without a reason. Focus on brands or products that deliver value. Focus on brands that are likely to survive and leave the others to sink or swim. Do not waste lot of time on customers who may be unprofitable, it is not worth spending time on them for a lower profit. You might as well focus on a customer who may take less of your time but have greater deals with you.
Advanced SEO: Strategies & Techniques
Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts gave an online conference with the group. The talk was on ‘Advanced Techniques in SEO’.
He said “if you need to win Google, you need to think outside the box”. This requires a Scientific Approach. He gave an insight about how results from the same site were grouped together by Google and how that affects ranking.
Some of the Strategies when it comes to your site are to focus on the PageRank flow by looking into the various factors like the internal linking structure, PageRank Sculpting, alternative linking structures like tags, tag clouds, etc. You also need to concentrate on the content and features that determine the site architecture like the url’s, html codes, templates used, AJAX, etc.
When it comes to the page rank, one needs to spend it strategically. It is not just about inbound links, but internal links also matter. It should be noted that the home page rank gets distributed to the deeper pages in the site. Links are the currency of the web when it is to do with SEO.
Some of the things that one needs to look into when it comes to internal linking are the site hierarchy or tree structure, breadcrumb navigation, proper site map and tagging. Breadcrumb is a navigation technique that shows the user’s path to the current location in the site. Tagging works great for deep internal linking and generates keyword rich links.
He then spoke about Indexation. The greater your trust or authority or page rank is, the deeper and more often the site gets crawled. You also need to keep a check on the crawl equity and make sure that it is not spread too thin. Google has two indices; the main and supplemental. Make sure you stay out of the ‘supplemental hell’. He also gave a lot of easy ways to find the right indexation.
He also spoke in detail about PR sculpting, which is managing the flow using nofollow on unimportant links. Some of the tools to check if they really flow are Server head checkers, SEOmoz’s Link Check, etc. It also must be noted that Link juice dissipates due to dynamic url’s, session id’s or user ids in url and superfluous flags in url.
Some of the other signals that concerns Google may be the age of domain, age of site, link buying footprint, historical transgressions, spammy TLD(eg. .info), quality of link neighbourhood, the number of subdomains, etc
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