December, 2012 - The Internet Marketing Driver

SEO Training Topics

I absolutely love getting in front of a group of people to speak about SEO (and always have). Over the past several years, I’ve led SEO training classes for clients covering a wide range of topics, from technical SEO to keyword research to content optimization to linkbuilding strategy. Although I’ve really enjoyed leading classes like this, I’ve always wanted to launch a training program that anyone could sign up for, and not just clients. Well, I finally put the program together, and it’s called SEO Bootcamp Princeton.

SEO Bootcamp Princeton is a three hour, in-person training course being held at the Johnson Education Center (at D&R Greenway) on January 17^th, from 9AM to 12PM. You can register online via EventBrite, and there’s a 20% off, early registration discount running through 12/31/12. If you register by then, tickets are $145 versus the standard price of $179.

The Target Audience for SEO Bootcamp Princeton
So, what will you learn at SEO Bootcamp Princeton? Put simply, you’ll learn a lot. My goal is to make sure attendees can leave the training ready to make changes to their websites. I’ve crafted the training so it can be valuable for any person marketing a business, from small business owners to corporate marketers. SMB’s will learn the tactical knowledge necessary to build a solid SEO foundation, while corporate marketers can learn SEO best practices and techniques.

In addition, the training will be extremely valuable for creative professionals, including designers, programmers, copywriters, etc. I used to work for a large agency in New York City, and I led a similar type of training there. I can tell you that every creative professional left the training with a stronger understanding of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Actually, I know the training changed how some people performed their jobs on a regular basis…

For example, designers and programmers learned about search engine friendly ways to design and code sites, while copywriters learned how to perform keyword research and properly optimize content. Professionals involved with information architecture (IA) learned how to best structure a navigation, while also learning the best ways to build an internal linking structure. And everyone in the training learned about the risks of redesigning a website without taking SEO into account.

Those are just a few of the SEO topics you’ll learn more about at SEO Bootcamp Princeton. Again, my goal is that you leave with a much deeper knowledge of SEO, that you can make changes immediately, and that you take SEO into account whenever working on a website, campaign, or redesign. You can learn more about the topics I’m going to cover on the SEO Bootcamp Princeton webpage.

SEO Bootcamp Princeton is Job-Agnostic – All Levels and Positions Will Benefit

Technical and Creative Job Titles

Tools and Plugins
SEO is definitely a mix of art and science. And in order to assist SEO professionals with several core tasks, there are many tools and plugins one can use. During the training, I will highlight several of the tools and plugins that can make your job easier SEO-wise. I’ve always said that when you combine the right tools with the right SEO knowledge, great things can happen. And I’ll make sure to explain some of my favorites along the way. From Firefox plugins to Chrome extensions to standalone software applications, you’ll leave the training with a list of tools that can help you on a regular basis.

SEO Tools Training

Major Algorithm Updates
I can’t leave this post without touching on a very important topic in SEO that’s affecting many business owners. Google has launched several important algorithm updates since early 2011, including both Panda and Penguin. As you can imagine, I receive calls every month from business owners that have gotten hammered by these updates. During SEO Bootcamp Princeton, I will introduce each major algorithm update, and cover important insights based on helping a range of businesses deal with the aftermath of getting hit. And more importantly, I can explain the best ways to avoid getting hit in the first place. You can read several of my case studies about Panda recovery and Penguin recovery if you are interested in learning more.

Panda and Penguin Algorithm Updates

Next Steps, Register Today
In closing, I’m ultra-excited about SEO Bootcamp Princeton. If you are interested in registering, you can sign up via the EventBrite page. Again, there’s a 20% off, early registration discount running through 12/31. After 12/31, the standard pricing will be $179 per seat. If you have any questions about the training, don’t hesitate to contact me. It would be great to see you there!

In May of 2012, Google Analytics introduced trackbacks in its social reporting. If you’re not familiar with trackbacks, they enable you to understand when another website links to your content. So, using Google Analytics, and the new trackbacks reporting, you could start to track inbound links you are building from across the web.

Note, if you want to perform advanced-level analysis of your links, you should still use more robust tools like Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO. But, trackbacks reporting is a quick and easy way to identify backlinks, and right within Google Analytics. It can definitely supplement your link analysis efforts.

If you’re in charge of content strategy for your company, or if you are publishing content on a regular basis, then checking trackbacks reporting in GA can quickly help you understand the fruits of your labor. But since trackbacks reporting isn’t immediately visible, I’ve written this post to explain how you can find trackbacks, and then what you can do with the data once you access the reporting.

Social Reports and Trackbacks
First, if you’re not familiar with social reporting in Google Analytics, you should check out my post from March where I cover how to use the new social reports to analyze content. Social reports are a great addition to GA, but I still find many marketers either don’t know about them, or don’t know how to use them. And that’s a shame, since they provide some great insights about the traffic coming from social networks, and the conversations going on there (at least for data hub partners).

Below, I’m going to walk you step by step through the process of finding links to your content via trackbacks reporting. Once we find them, I’ll explain what you can do with your newly-found link data.

How To Find Trackbacks (Step by Step)
1. Access your Google Analytics reporting, and click “Traffic Sources”, “Social”, and then “Network Referrals”.

2. Next, click a network referral in the list like Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Note, “Network Referral” is new language used by Google Analytics for “Social Network” or “Source”.

3. Once you click through a source, you should click the “Activity Stream” tab located near the top of the screen (right above the trending graph).

4. Once you click the activity stream tab, you’ll need to click the dropdown arrow next to the “Social Network” label at the very top of the screen. Once you do, you’ll see a link in that list for “Trackbacks”. Click that link.

5. Once you click the “Trackbacks” link, you will see the links to your content that Google Analytics picked up.

Congratulations, you found the hidden treasure of trackbacks in Google Analytics! Not the easiest report to find, is it? Now let’s find out what you can do with the data.

What You Can Do Once You Find Trackbacks
First, I’ll quickly cover the data provided in the trackbacks reporting. Google Analytics provides the following information for each trackback it picks up:

The date the trackback was picked up.
The title and URL of the page linking to your content.
The ability to launch and view your content that’s receiving the link.
And a quick way to isolate that content in your social reports (to view all social activity for that specific page).

Next, I’ll cover four ways you can benefit from analyzing trackbacks data in Google Analytics, including a bonus at the end. Let’s jump in.

1. Understand the source of the trackback (Who is linking to you.)
Linkbuilding is hard. So when your content builds links naturally, you definitely want to understand the source of those links. Trackbacks in Google Analytics provides an easy and quick way to identify links to your content. But once you build some links, you shouldn’t stop and have a tropical drink with a fancy umbrella as you admire your results. You should analyze your newly-found inbound links.

For example, you should determine if the links are strong, relevant, and how much will those links help with your SEO efforts. You should also determine which authors decided to link to you, what’s their background, and where else do they write?m

One of the first things you’ll see in trackbacks reporting is the title and URL of the page linking to your content. At this point, you can click the small arrow icon next to the URL to open the referring page in a new window. You can also click the “More” button on the right side of the page, and then click “View Activity” to be taken to the page linking to your content.

At this point, you can check out the article or post linking to you, understand who wrote the content, what they focus on, link to their social accounts, find their contact information, etc. Building relationships with quality authors in your niche is a great way to earn links down the line. Therefore, analyzing the people who already link to your content is low-hanging fruit. Trackbacks in GA make it easy to find them.

2. Understand Your Content That’s Building Links
When I’m working with content teams, I always get the question, “what should we write about?” I’m a big believer that a content generation plan should be based on data, and not intuition. And trackbacks provide another piece of data to analyze. Let’s face it, the proof is in the pudding from a linkbuilding standpoint. Either your content builds links or it doesn’t. If it does, you need to find out why that content built the links it did. And if it didn’t build links, you need to document that and make sure you don’t make the same mistake again.

As I mentioned earlier, there are some outstanding link analysis tools on the market, like Open Site Explorer and Majestic SEO, and I’m not saying that trackbacks in Google Analytics are the end-all. But, you can definitely use the reporting to quickly understand which content is building links.

Once you find trackbacks and identify the content that built those links, you can start to analyze and understand what drove interest. Was it breaking news, evergreen content, how-to’s, industry analysis, etc? Which topics were hot from a linkbuilding standpoint, and were those the topics you expected to build links? If you find a subject that worked well in the past, you can build a plan for expanding on that topic. Also, are the pages linking to you providing ideas for new posts? Do the comments on the page provide ideas, what did the author mention, etc? Trackbacks provide a mechanism for supplementing your analysis.

3. Join the conversation, Engage Influencers
I explained above how you can find the people (and websites) linking to your content. That’s great, but you shouldn’t stop there. If there’s a conversation happening on that referring page, then you should join the conversation. If someone went to the extent to mention and link to your content, the least you can do is thank them, and provide value to the conversation.

Adding value to the conversation and engaging a targeted audience can help you build more credibility and connect with targeted people in your niche. And as I mentioned above, you can connect with the author of the post via email or via their social accounts.

4. Understand Linkbuilding Over Time
Using the trending graph in Google Analytics, you can visually understand linkbuilding over time. The graph at the top of the screen will show you the number of trackbacks earned over the time period you have selected in GA. I’m not saying that it’s better than using other, dedicated link analysis tools, but this is a quick way to find link data right within Google Analytics.

In addition, if you click the “More” button for any specific trackback, and then click “Page Analytics”, you can isolate specific pieces of content receiving links. Note, I’ve been seeing a test in Google Analytics where “Page Analytics” is replaced by “Filter on this Page”. Personally, I like “Filter on this Page” since it’s more intuitive. Regardless, after clicking the link you can trend linkbuilding over time for a specific piece of content.

In addition, you can always compare timeframe to see how links were built during one timeframe versus another. You might find some interesting things, like a piece of content that built more inbound links months later versus when the content was first published. Then you can dig into the links to find out why…

Bonus: Export The Data!
As with any report in Google Analytics, you can easily export trackbacks data. If you are viewing any trackbacks report, you can click “Export” at the top of the screen, and then choose a format to quickly export the data for further analysis in Excel. Then you can slice and dice the data, combine data from other reports, etc. What you do with the data depends on your own Excel skills. :)

Summary – Quick Link Analysis in Google Analytics
I hope after reading this post you’re ready to jump into Google Analytics to hunt down trackbacks. Again, Google didn’t necessarily make it super-easy to find trackbacks, but they are there. Once you do find them, you can analyze those links to glean important insights that can help your future content and linkbuilding efforts. Although there are more robust link analysis solutions on the market, trackbacks reporting is a quick and easy way to identify and then analyze inbound links. I recommend checking out the reporting today. You never know what you’ll find. :)

Archives for December 2012

Introducing SEO Bootcamp Princeton, A Hands-On SEO Training Course in Princeton NJ