Darren Shaw

Darren Shaw has been developing websites since 1996 and has been optimizing them for the search engines since 2001. He loves all areas of internet marketing, but is currently obsessed with local SEO. He is the founder of an Edmonton Search Engine Optimization company, Whitespark, and developed the popular Local Citation Finder tool for helping SEOs and businesses find citations. Follow Darren on Twitter.

Along with Garrett French, Ben Wills what was the biggest inspiration behind building the Local Citation Finder?

There wasn’t really any inspiration. Garrett came up with an original and brilliant idea, wrote this awesome post about it, and I figured I could build a tool to automate the process. We had the first version of the tool working in a couple days. Hundreds of development hours later, we have built it into a powerful citation analysis tool. It’s the only citation analysis tool on the market as far as I know.

From the latter end of 2010 and the introduction into the SERP`s of more generic keywords, how has this impacted on the results the LCF is fetching, has it improved the number of sources?

That’s a great question. I hadn’t compared the number of sources before and after the rollout of the new SERPs. I just ran a few new searches to see the difference:

Edmonton Flowers
August 17th, 2010: 207 citation sources
Feb 3rd, 2011: 310 citation sources

Edmonton Plumbing
August 30th, 2010: 174 citation sources
Feb 3rd, 2011: 243 citation sources

Edmonton Windows
Sept 22nd, 2010: 216 citation sources
Feb 3rd, 2011: 244 citation sources

Unfortunately I don’t have test data from right before the change, and right after. That would be more valuable for this question. There certainly appears to be an increase though. That could be because Google is giving the top positions to businesses with more citations, or, it could be just that those businesses with the top positions for these terms have been working on their citation building over the past 6 months.

My gut tells me that when the SERPs changed it naturally increased the number of citations the tool returned because the sites with top rankings would now have stronger organic SEO, and thus, more links and more citations. Before, you could have top rankings with a claimed place page, a well targeted and claimed Place Page, a few citations, and plenty of reviews. Now, you need to have strong onsite and offsite organic SEO as well.

Local SEO is fast becoming a must have tactic and Andrew Shotland and Mike Blumenthal among others have been at the forefront for a while now, how do you see Local SEO developing over the coming year?

Local is exploding. I think you’ll see many new Local SEO focused businesses open and a number of Local SEO tools come out. Small businesses are scaling back their Yellow Pages spend and turning to Local SEO in droves. It’s about time! I have some clients that were paying Yellow Pages $5000/month for all the advertising they were doing with them. That’s nuts. In many markets, the return on investment from a Local SEO campaign is 100 times what you get from Yellow Pages.

In addition to Andrew Shotland (@localseoguide) and Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal), I would recommend also following David Mihm (@davidmihm), Matt McGee (@mattmcgee), Chris Silver Smith (@si1very), Mike Ramsey (@niftymarketing), and fellow Canadians Dev Basu (@devbasu), Matthew Hunt (@smbusinesscoach), and Steve Hatcher (@axemedia) .

Geo-tagging sites like Foursquare and Gowalla are a consideration for SEO for local search and citations, do you see an expansion in this direction or have these sites nailed it already?

Yes, I think we’ll see huge expansion. I’m sure we’ll see more and more companies add check-in features. We’ve already seen Facebook places, and Twitter places, and I can see Google HotPot adding check-in options as well, but I don’t expect it to be very successful.
Foursquare continues to dominate and innovate in this space, and I think they will for the foreseeable future. Small businesses should get involved with Foursquare now. There is low competition, so, it’s a great opportunity to get your business front and center on the service. I could go on, but Chuck Reynolds nails it in these two posts:

Local Search Marketing Using Foursquare
What Foursquare 3 Means to Small Business

If there was one single tip you could give to a site owner for Local Search what would it be?

Only one?! You won’t get top rankings if you only do one thing, but if I can only provide a single tip it would be to make sure your NAP (name, address, phone number) are consistent everywhere on the web. So, don’t use call tracking numbers (this is related, so, still just one tip!). See: http://searchengineland.com/the-problem-of-inconsistent-smb-contact-details-%E2%80%93-part-i-37322.

Bonus tip: with the new blended local results, links to your website with localized anchor text (eg: chicago hair salons) are the fast track to top rankings. Do some backlink analysis on your top competitors and look specifically at the links with optimized anchor text. Figure out how they are getting those, and do the same. Look at the top ranking businesses in other major cities for more ideas.

Is Local search citation in the quantity or the quality, should we be building citations enmasse or concentrating on the same sites that rear their heads for the keyphrase?

As in link building, it’s both. You want plenty of citations, but, a single good citation can be worth 100 junk citations. To determine the value of a citation source, I like to use the same metrics that I use in link building: Age of Domain, SEOmoz Domain Authority, and Majestic AC Rank. We also have our own metric that we developed through the data collected from the Local Citation Finder. We’re still tweaking the algorithm, but should have it ready to release within a couple of months.

Judging the value of a citation source requires more than just evaluating the link building metrics though. You have to think local. In my opinion, a mention on a small hyper-local blog with your name, address, and phone number is more valuable than a superpages.com listing, even though superpages is going to have much higher values when you look at the link building metrics.

I have not seen raw volume of citations be the dominant ranking factor. In all the competitive analysis reports we’ve put together, the businesses with the most rankings are not always the businesses with the most citations. You can see a real world example of this in the example competitive analysis report that is linked on our local SEO description page.
I like to use sponsorships for quality citations. Find a local sports team or charity with your city in the domain name, and decent backlink strength, and sponsor them. Be sure to get your NAP and an anchor text optimized link out of the deal.

How much does personalised search skew the Local Search results?

Great question! I really don’t know. I would assume it would affect local results in the same way it affects organic results. I just ran some tests and I definitely get different results if I’m signed in. The sites I visit most often rank higher when I’m signed in. So, I’m just going to assume that local is skewed by personalization as much as organic.

As a small business owner or new to Local SEO where should I be looking to for further reading on getting started?

I really like Dev Basu’s five part article on Web Marketing Today. It’s a perfect beginner’s guide to place page optimization, website optimization for local, citation building, and review acquisition. Plus, you can read the whole thing in under 30 minutes.
For further reading, these are my favourite sources:

• Mike Blumenthal: http://blumenthals.com/blog/
• David Mihm: http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/
• Andrew Shotland: http://www.localseoguide.com/
• Matt McGee: http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/
• SEL’s Local’s Only Column: http://searchengineland.com/library/locals-only
• SEL’s Small is Beautiful Column: http://searchengineland.com/library/small-is-beautiful
• GetListed’s Learning Centre: http://getlisted.org/resources/

How did you first start out into delving into the SEO space?

I built an e-commerce store for my sister’s company, Education Station, back in 2001. We started looking at search results for “teaching supplies” and wanted to get ranked. Oh it was so easy back then! I did some research and learned the basics of title tags, image alts, general keyword stuffing, and link building. I built a script to auto-email all these small websites with lists of “teacher resources”.

I’d search around for the sites, find their contact info, then add them to my script. “Hello $name, I was just checking out your site with awesome teacher resources. Great site! Have you seen Education Station’s new site? I think it would fit in perfectly with the other links you have on the page.” Back then, my success rate with this tactic was about 70%!! These days, anyone with a “links” page has probably had to get a new email address because of the spam.

2011 for SEO is the year of ….. ?

Local, of course! More search engine focus on local, more local specialists, more local tools, more local SEO awareness.

Huge thank you to Darren for agreeing to the interview and I think you will agree, packed with insights. Want more? you are insatiable, ok read more SEO Questions.

Justin Parks is one of the old school SEO`s, he is as quick to adapt as the rest of us so don`t let that stand as a statement. You can read more about Justin on JustinParks.com.

Justin Parks

As an Irishman living in Spain, an SEO/Social Media Consultant, a developer of some nifty twitter scripts and a devout Guinness drinker. How do you describe yourself?

Damn.  That summation is pretty comprehensive. If it included something related to “moaning old bollocks”, and a “pessimistic optimist” it would be 100% on the money I reckon.

To clarify on one point though I don’t develop scripts I discover them most of the time (when im not hacking them up). I know loads of guys who mess around on coding stuff and who are not natural English speaking or who don’t reach the English speaking sector so I love getting their work out there.  Doesn’t happen often but its fun when it does.

I also love a good argument and I tend to swear… a lot.

You have been in SEO for 10 years now and back when we first began we had very few forums and mailing lists, where is your first port of call when you need answers?

10 years ago I didn’t need answers.  It all worked.  It was perfectly idyllic.  At least until the Florida update.  Then it went to hell.

Honestly, ten years ago i remember seeing things happen in a much more instant, much simpler and much more intense way. Launching a site meant loading the Metas up and making databases churn out pretty URL pages and no problem at all.  We had a site getting visits and producing enquiries.  Testing was simple and easy.  You didn’t actually need to ask anyone anything.

Then it changed. By that stage the forums had boards being loaded with questions and observations and it became essential to “get sucked” or “stuck in” I guess, whichever one suits you, to see what all the SEO changes were, what others had discovered and how you could apply that information for yourself.  Things just went from there!

There are quite a few things that annoy me when I see them, for example continuous blog/forum/scraper spam. What winds you up?

Hot Air and wasting my time. I fucking hate it. We have all manoeuvred ourselves into a very awkward position today in the SEO industry (and beyond I guess).  Everyone’s out to get the “scoop”, be the first on the SERP and get that traffic influx… Google demands we create content, small good, large “lots of it” thank you very much and we oblige.

This means we see plenty of hot air on blogs and sites.  Regurgitated crap.  The same stuff over and over again, rewrote and reworded but essentially with the exact same point or message or observation just to try and get that extra couple of visitors, bait some more links or whatever.

Waste of time… my time… and that’s what really makes me mad.  Just write something well, make it researched, make it observant, make it thoughtful and it will do you more good than churning out loads of fluff every single day of the week, and I might even end up liking you for it (not guaranteed though).

Small business is slowly becoming aware of the power of SEO and combining that with a Social Media voice. How do you translate that to your clients?

I think breathlessly is the best way to describe it.  I talk to small business a lot and have a hard earned reputation of giving honest advice, even if they don’t want to hear it. Here in Spain though, they are a serious hard sell and slow to be convinced, no matter the evidence you confront them with.

On one side there is a long standing tradition resisting the advances in technology and on the reverse there are those who grasp it with both hands… just in the wrong way (or they go with some more, shall we say “less scrupulous” companies) and blow loads of money on it and see nothing in return. Not an uncommon tale I believe.

To help Small business I find the hands on approach is best. Currently I run small group workshops that focus on social media and help to train and educate people on the tools available out there to manage their social profiles which inevitably also touches on their web presence and seo. My hope is, that this will develop more confidence and trust in these small business people in the technology and that it will also prevent them getting ripped of in the future.

Who are your “must read” sites, the sites you find yourself visiting on a regular basis when it comes to SEO reading?

It has to be the SEO Training Dojo and Search News Central as the central point. Previously I would have read ten or 12 other sites and been involved in the forums and this and that.  Now I don’t have time… did I already mention how much I hate wasting my time? I did?  good.  That’s why I love the dojo and the members there. Aside from that I do monitor (and admire) many people on twitter who work in the industry, and not just in SEO.

To drop a few names there is Rishi, SEO Mofo, Tim Nash,  Terry Van Horne, Barry Adams, Andy Beard and of course David Harry …. in fact sod this… if you want to know more just check my list here: Search Engine Optimisation Crew.

Anyone on it is definitely worth checking out… and if your worth checking out and your not on it…then get in touch with me and we will see ;P.

I tend to find that a well managed list of these folks gives me all the latest news, the most relevant stuff and the most up to date stuff that ultimately saves me a shed load of time.

Being out in Spain is there an SEO scene, conferences or meetups that other SEO`s out there should be aware of?

No.  There was. Its dried up.  I think the sun simply destroyed the pasty white skin of any coder, developer or webmaster brave enough to step onto the beach. There is a bit of a Spanish scene here but I really don’t move in that circle as I don’t focus on the Spanish business sector so much. I’m also talking specifically about the Provence I live in which is Andalucia.  In Madrid and Barcelona it may be (and probably is) much more active for this type of thing.

For me, the main scene still requires I return to the UK (believe it or not) and that’s exactly why I booked my tickets for Think Visibility (http://www.thinkvisibility.com)  just today. With the cheap flights between the UK and the Costas its actually more cost effective (and beneficially) for me to get there and stay for a few days than it is to get the train to the north of Spain!

If you had the opportunity to mentor a trainee SEO, what would be your first words of wisdom to him/her to describe our industry?

Don’t believe everything that you read. Ever.

With so many factors influencing everything we try to nail down with any degree of accuracy, what does “SEO testing” mean to you?

SEO testing regularly involves me saying “What the hell just happened to that traffic”…

No, seriously. I find SEO testing to be a bit of a misnomer. I just “do SEO”. I think testing has become something I can’t differentiate from the other processes of sorting out the SEO side of things. It’s one and the same. I make it and then work on it, check it, change it, check it again, change it and go from there. SEO should just be renamed “website placement testing”. Much more simple.

Since SEO seems to die every year and has done since we learned how to walk, what do you say to these “influencers”?

Shut up. (And maybe go and read question 3).

2011 for SEO is the year of ….. ?

I have this sneaking feeling that local will dominate this year and as such mobile will get a massive boost. I think the rise of all the local, GPS, geo-location type services will be addressed and affect SEO in a big way (it already is happening).

With Facebook places, googles reinvestment in local and Google maps and of course Gowalla and Foursquare becoming more popular if it doesn’t happen it will definitely be something to watch.

Thanks Justin for adding to what is turning out to be a great series of “SEO Questions” I am going to be buying a few too many beers at this rate when Thinkvisibility comes around. Make sure you catch me at the free bar

I have known Kev Strong online for a couple of years now you may know him better as @goosh but we only recently met at the Manchester SEO event last October over a few beers. He may be a supporter of the NUFC but all is forgiven as we are both probably as passionate about SEO. Kev currently works as an SEO Consultant at Mediaworks.

Kev Strong aka Goosh

How did you find yourself involved with agency SEO, where did it all begin?

I started getting into SEO when I was a PHP developer around 2006. The company I worked for at the time offered SEO, but didn’t really understand it so I took it upon myself to learn about it, try it and test it. I set up my own blog, a few websites and tried a few things out.

In 2009 I got made redundant and I decided to focus on SEO 100% as it excited me. Luckily for me, I found work quickly at a small SEO firm called Mediaworks Online Marketing. I was their 2nd employee; they now the largest online marketing company in the North-East of England with over 25 employees.

How would you recommend those new to SEO seek a position within an SEO agency?

Set up your own site, try things, test things and achieve some rankings.

Look around for the companies local to you and email them. Interact with them online through Twitter, Facebook etc, attend the same networking events and get yourself noticed. I’ve yet to meet an SEO who wasn’t approachable.

What has been the most rewarding compliment of your work you have received while working in the SEO industry?

That’s a tough one. My work generally involves everything from content optimisation, technical analysis, right through to delivering SEO training for in-house marketing teams.

I would have to say that one compliment I often get is when I help other people, particularly after delivering training sessions.

One that springs to mind is when I delivered a training session to a room of 12 website administrators who were responsible for uploading content to the company’s website. The marketing manager commented afterwards that I not only helped educate her team about SEO and its importance, but I also increased staff morale by making them feel trusted, important and needed in the day to day running of the business – quite a feat for a simple content optimisation training session!

As a result, they had their best ever period online in 2 years after that session.

What is your agencies regular SEO reading list?

This comes down to the individual member of the team as we have our own interests in different areas of online marketing and, surprisingly, the majority comes via online sources.

I would have to say that necessities for the RSS feeds are SEOMoz, Search News Central, Search Engine Land, SE Roundtable and an assortment of people I follow on Twitter.

How do you see SEO developing over the next year?

I think the lines will blur even further. In the five years I have been doing this I have seen SEO move much more solidly into the realms of marketing and become a necessary part of any websites marketing. With the emergence of social & online PR playing a much bigger part in a company’s marketing plan, I can see a lot of crossover in 2011, particular with traditional media outlets.

What websites/blogs/forums are your regular haunts (+2 bonus points for extra stalker value) which give up the most information and resources for SEO?

The usual suspects would have to be SEOMoz, SEO Dojo, Search Engine Journal, Dave Naylors blog, Blogstorm, SEO Gadget and a few other *secret* forums. Infact, nearly every blog currently on Lee Odden’s Top 30 UK Blogs. Oh, and SEO Begin of course. Oh, and my own blog, goosh.co.uk.

I must say that I rely a lot less on my RSS reader nowadays and much more on Twitter to share the shining must-read blogs.

As a freelance SEO I am constantly reading to enhance or develop, learn tactics and strategies for my clients, how important is it that agency SEO teams meet and discuss ongoing strategies and how much do conferences play a part?

I would say that education & training within an SEO company is fundamental as the industry moves so quickly. We have a scheduled Monday morning training session comprising of webinars, DVD’s, articles, internal research results etc. We have a very strong sharing mentality in our team and if someone reads something that is of benefit, we share it – simple as that.

Last year was the first year that we sent staff to conferences and I must say that the benefits we received on all fronts were amazing! We learnt some great things, we confirmed a lot of our practises as being in line with those of others and, well, the networking element plays a massive part too. So much so, we have just worked out our conference and training plan for 2011.

What has been the most challenging part of your SEO career so far?

Hands down working with international brands and increasing their online revenue.

When I started SEO it was about the technical aspects of the implementation and ranking first page, but I very quickly learned that it’s no good being there unless you make money.

Not having come from a marketing background I have had to constantly learn and evolve to become a solid all-round online marketer.

If there is one SEO in our field that is on our must read list, who is it?

Hmmm, that’s a tough one! Aside from the people & sites I mentioned earlier I would have to say Rishi Lakhani over at http://explicitly.me. Whilst he doesn’t always blog about SEO, I have to say that lately he’s been banging some of the most consistent articles out this year – a little bit of everything to do with online marketing to help get the mind whirring. Hopefully he’ll keep it up throughout 2011.

What single recommendation would you make to a business that has implemented zero SEO to their website?

If we are talking on-site recommendations, I would say Internal linking without a shadow of a doubt (closely followed by unique Title tags). The amount of websites I see that implement correct internal linking and rise in traffic through longtail is unbelievable. Purely a case of not utilising their own power.

If we are talking offsite – simple – links. Beg, borrow and buy em!

2011 for SEO is the year of ….. ?

I can see much more emphasis moving towards online PR. With content generation, guest blogging and article sharing increasing in 2010 I can honestly see traditional media attempting to claim back a share of the online market through their own websites and content networks (at least a little more in the open than it is now).

Thank you Kev for agreeing to the SEO Questions and I am looking forward to meeting up again in Leeds.

Barry Adams

Barry Adams is for me one of the guys I like to read up on when it comes to Google News related advice and practices, the man is very approachable and a fountain of knowledge. He writes across many sites including Search News Central, State of Search and his own Great Websites Blog. He very kindly agreed to answer SEO Questions.

How did you find yourself as an SEO, where did it all begin?

I suppose I can trace it back to the late 1990′s when I built a website for a role-playing game I was quite fanatical about at the time. (Yes I am a huge geek.) I wanted that site to show up in search engines when people searched for that RPG, so I started to investigate how that could be accomplished. The rest, they say, is history.

Google News seems to be your passion, where would you point those new to SEO to focus on this particular tactic?

Google News is one of those verticals you barely pay any attention to until you’re immersed in it. Working as the Belfast Telegraph’s SEO has really opened my eyes to the power and potential of Google News, especially with regards to universal search. If anyone wants to explore Google News I recommend working for a news site – or if that’s not feasible, do a lot of work with press releases and see how they manage to break in to the universal SERPs. Also it’s a good idea to try and cultivate relationships with journalists and online editors. Those types of connections can come in very handily indeed.

You recently moved to Pierce Communications towards the end of last year, from an in-house SEO perspective how do you find devs receive you when you deploy strategies or recommendations?

I’m used to adversarial relationships with web developers. I hugely admire developers for what they can do and the constraints they have to work with, but usually my recommendations weren’t well-received.

Here at Pierce Communications the exact opposite is the case: our web developers are not only brilliant coders, they’re also keenly aware of the necessities of SEO and usability practices. That makes working with them immensely rewarding, and it also enables valuable exchanges of ideas and knowledge. Some of the things these guys come up with actually help my SEO efforts in ways I might not have been able to do as a stand-alone optimiser.

Like quite a few SEO`s you started out as a webmaster and picked up HTML and learned how to manipulate it. HTML5 is slowly being adopted across web properties and assets but the main question is how much does an SEO today need to know code?

SEO is a hybrid discipline of technical know-how and marketing expertise. I believe a truly all-round SEO needs to understand HTML as it enables them to audit websites on a level that a-technical SEOs might not be able to. A SEO that doesn’t know code can still get the job done, but probably not as well as someone who has the technical expertise.

Processes in SEO are client dependent whichever way you approach them, how much do you find you are changing yours with the forever evolving search engines?

Not all that much to be honest. Yes search engines change nearly daily and SEOs play catch-up all the time, but at its core SEO is still about keywords and links. The exact ways in which we implement keywords on a site and how we obtain links have changed, but keywords and links are still what makes SEO work.

So my own processes haven’t really changed much, it’s still about finding the right keywords and implementing them on a site in the right places, and obtaining good links. The only thing that has really changed in the way I approach SEO is more a result of my growth as a professional rather than due to changes in the search engines: I pay much more attention now to a site’s information architecture and how this relates to a page’s relevance for a given (set of) keywords.

The SEO community is a tight one, we congregate across SM, forums, blogs, IM. What is the first site that comes to your mind when you look for SEO advice?

That depends on the type of advice I’m in need of. For quick & dirty tips I always shoot off a question on Twitter first and usually get great responses from the wider SEO community. I’ve found that especially UK SEOs are very willing to help each other out, and I feel truly privileged to be a part of that community. From London to Glasgow, from Manchester to Belfast, SEOs across the UK readily lend a helping hand to one another.

For serious, in-depth SEO advice I approach the members of the SEO Training Dojo. It’s an international community of SEOs whose combined knowledge and experience are pretty much unmatched. If the Dojo can’t solve it for you, it’s unsolvable.

You are a passionate SEO blogger, how have you found writing and sharing your experiences has helped you?

I’ve found that it’s very much a case of give and you shall receive. The more I share, the more I get back. My blogging has enabled me to make (small) forays into the conference speaking circuit and has helped me get in touch with other professionals who in turn share their experiences. And I’m pretty sure that the profile I’ve built through my blogging have played a big part in helping me land my current job – which is pretty much a dream job working for a superb company. So I’m exceptionally grateful to people like Bas van den Beld, David Harry and Peter Young who’ve given me these chances.

What has been your biggest mistake in SEO, how did you turn that to your advantage?

Oh I’ve made many mistakes, my predictions tend to go 50/50 in terms of accuracy. For example I didn’t foresee the impact social media would end up having on SEO – and to be honest I’m still sceptical even now – but the key is to have a flexible mind. When proven wrong I try to accept it, find out why, and learn the appropriate lesson. Then I move on to my next blunder. I loathe dogma, and I truly believe that doubt and uncertainty are to be embraced. Everything is up for debate, nothing is etched in stone. But you always need to have facts to back up your statements. You could say I’m an advocate for evidence-based SEO.

Time for a bit of third party pimping, name me one SEO I should just shut up and listen to?

That’s an easy one: David Harry, the Sifu of the SEO Dojo, all-around great guy, and probably the smartest SEO I know. And definitely the sexiest.

2011 for SEO is the year of … ?

… keeping calm and carrying on.

Thanks Barry for agreeing to be part of the 10 SEO Questions series, greatly appreciated.

David Harry is someone you have come across before in the SEO space, he is a passionate writer about our industry and defender of our faith, our faith in all that is SEO. I will start you off with a quote directly from the SEO Training Dojo;

We are all students; we are all teachers. No one amongst us holds a greater power than the collective. This place, our place, was created with the goal of having a realm for growing our passion of the art and spending time with those equally entwined.

David Harry

How did you get into the search game?

Oh man, not one of these interviews. Seriously, does anyone really care about my ass that much? LOL. Ok, fine, I was born way back in the 60′s and spent my… oh right, that’s a bit too far back. Fast forward. In 1998 or so I went into the world of web design and over the next 4 years many clients had asked about ranking in search engines. Eventually I decided to branch out and do that full time. Still here…

Where did your obsession with Information Retrieval and patent searches begin?

Not really sure to be honest. I was a bit of a geek as a kid (no worries, no long version) and spent a fair bit of time at libraries. The concept of organizing the world’s information just seemed amazing to me the more I learned about search.

I suppose the real turning point was probably late 2005 when Bill Slawski started spreading the gospel of the geek. In 2006 I met an IR, (information retrieval) geek at one of the engines which also carried that interest further. Since then I have been able to meet other IR folks, interview them and even CS (computer science) in general (NLP, Machine Learning etc..).

Oh and it’s not just patents. Research papers are damned interesting too. Remember, patents are the past, papers are the future. We (SEOs) live somewhere in between.

Where would you recommend SEO`s begin their first baby steps into IR?.

Huh, well… I suppose you could always start with a post I did a few years back on; SEO Higher Learning. There are a ton of resources in there from the beginner to the more in-depth kinda stuff.

Obviously sites like SEO by the Sea are great to start with, there are some good geeky and IR blogs in this list and if you’re into vids, a great place to start is the CS section of Video Lecture

You decided to build out an SEO community and brought the world the SEO Training Dojo, what has been the most memorable moment so far?

Uhm surviving for a year and a half? LOL. Ultimately for me is has to be how much I HAVE LEARNED. Originally I was worried that I’d spend all of my time teaching the basics over and over ad nauseum. That hasn’t been the case. We’ve attracted a LOT of very savvy SEOs and I have learned more about SEO (and internet-marketing) over the last 18 months than the last 4 years combined.

No single moment really stands out. Beyond the amazing members, we’ve also been fortunate to have a lot of smart folks co-host our Friday chat sessions (and now as guests on the podcast) which is certainly one of the highlights for me. Great people make for a great community.

With so many writing commitments, sites to run, clients to serve and delving the very bowels of patents and a family life do you have a time machine?

Ha ha ha ha ha… time machine, don’t I wish. Actually, 2011 is a year that I am determined to spend more time with my family (kids are 8 & 10, important times). That in turn means much better organization skills are required and I am actually getting there.

Writing isn’t actually as taxing as years past because I have a great cast of writers at Search news Central and only drop the odd post on the Trail. Beyond that I have a monthly commitment on Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land. That’s not so bad either.

As for the community and clients, as you know I have Terry working with me as well as utilizing more outsourcing partners in 2011. It really does come down to a great team and strong time management.

What is the single (worst) piece of bad SEO advice you have read/heard?

That’s a loaded question to be honest. If we take the totality of all the SEO blogs/publications out there, then there’s a TON of crap advice churned out daily. So I generally consider such questions as per the larger publications/conference speakers etc. Ya know what I mean?

There isn’t really a single one that sticks out, but the most common bitch I have is when people take a patent/paper and start screaming from the mountain tops about some ‘new’ bobble they have discovered. There is no context generally with these. It is massively bad form to do this because not only are they often dated (many patent awards are YEARs old) but we need to consider there are likely dozens of other patents/papers on the topic.

The whole ‘reasonable surfer‘ affair last year is a GREAT example of this. When authority figures in the search space make such claims it has a ripple effect across the board and we folks in the trenches now have to answer to clients as to why we’re not taking it verbatim.

Other great examples are the LDA fiasco and ‘bounce rates as ranking signals‘. That kind of thing really pisses me off and puts us all into damage control mode with clients.

On the flip side what was your biggest eureka moment in SEO?

Finding Bill’s site? Seriously, understanding how search engines actually work is THE biggest part of how I do what I do. I don’t need to rely on what I learn in books, what the SEO bloggers are saying and so forth. Before then I really was at the whims of the information out there and personal testing. Problem being of course, we only implement and test that which we learned in the SEO space. Now I tend to craft my programs and strategies based on what I know about the engines, not what SEOs tell me.

As far as specifics, I’d have to go with the studies we did on SERP flux and personalized search which was quite interesting and busted my hypothesis going into it. Anything that shakes up your own beliefs is always good for an ah ha moment.

Organic search seems like it is constantly evolving to include more local packs and SEO`s are adapting to embrace this change. What other signs on your patent research travels have perked your attention in this area?

SEO Training Dojo

We’ve (dojo peeps) talked a lot about how the SERPs themselves have been evolving, the rise of the universal SERP. And one of the more obvious places of course has been local for sure. If anything, 2010 was more about actual display (SERP changes) than actual algo changes that affected rankings as in years past. That’s what’s made it important to have a ‘SERP-out’ approach to SEO, not glazing over on data from this or that tool. And really not as much about papers/patents.

To that end, we really need to strategically be aware of the query spaces we’re in and adapt our programs to ensure we’re making the most of various elements such as Video, News, Blogs, Social, Local and whatever else might have a presence in the space (including rich snippets, microformats on and on).

Patents? Once more they can’t really tell us that much, they’re more about educating ourselves about how search engines work. I believe that one area they’re working hard at right now is sentiment analysis and reviews, I’d expect some movement there in the future. And of course the obvious one is the social graph and where that all leads (entities, velocity, connections).

What is your view of Googles comparison searches that are appearing in our SERP`s (flights/credit cards/mortgages etc) will they eventually kill the little guy off in favour of bigger brands?

Well, this is business. The internet isn’t always the great equalizer that it once was. Just like offline, it is getting harder for the small business to compete. This isn’t likely Google per se (outside of authority factors). Consider that the large corp has a larger budget to throw at the SEO activities and thus can generally outrank the little guy. Is that the search engine’s fault?

As for the brand recomendations, (query refinements) which is what I believe you’re talking about, those are from query analysis and not actually a ‘brand boost’ in the purest sense of the word. The trick is now to utilize other elements (such as local) to gain visibility as a distributor of the brand. There are more ways to skin a cat these days (video, blogs, news, local, shopping etc…).

Now, where I am more concerned are for those that provide information and the like. We’ve seen the whole search nutrality issue on the rise lately (Maps sights losing out to Google Maps etc..) which is once again, how things evolved, sorry Charlie. But what of the ‘no click searching‘ concepts that Ori Allon (may have) brought on board? In short;

“The results to the query are displayed immediately in the form of expanded text extracts, giving you the relevant information without having to go to the website – although you still have that option if you wish,” ”

We are seeing more and more query spaces where Google actually displays the answer to your query without you needing to go to the site. This is a bit shitty if you ask me, but not talked about as much.

2011 for SEO is the year of ….. ?

Can you ask me in December? Seriously, we really didn’t see some of the shake-up that was 2010 coming. There really is so much going on I think it has to be situational. We have local going nuts as is social. Related to local, the mobile market is a big target for Google as well. But for other markets (and query spaces) hitting Google News might be the ‘big thing’. See what I mean? Each of us is likely to have a different take on what is the mover this year. It’s situational.

On the other hand, I have a feeling there will be movement in the world of search quality at Google. This means Matt (Cutts) and company will have their hands full and we may see that thin content (and thin link profiles) will continue to be eroded this year, all the more reason to become deeper strategically.

Thanks David for some very insightful answers and resources and taking the time out to answer my SEO Questions.

Thanks man, it’s always fun talking shop and getting geeky, glad to drop by and spread the Gospel of the Geek!