Stephan Spencer
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Stephan Spencer

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About Stephan Spencer

Stephan Spencer is the creator of the 3-day immersive SEO seminar Traffic Control; an author of the O’Reilly books The Art of SEO, Google Power Search, and Social eCommerce; founder of the SEO agency Netconcepts (acquired in 2010); inventor of the SEO proxy technology GravityStream; and the host of two podcast shows Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak.

Stephan Spencer's latest articles

Google

Anatomy of a Google search listing

There’s no perfect method to snagging the top overall search result for every relevant query, but columnist Stephan Spencer believes that understanding each element of Google's search listings can give you the best chance for success.

Content

Scaling & Systematizing Your Link Building

I’m all about systems and processes. That’s the only way to scale. You could be the best link builder in the world, but how are you going to scale that? Until you remove the bottleneck — namely yourself — from the system, you can’t achieve true scale. (At least until human cloning becomes a reality.) […]

SEO

Buyer Beware: 5 Tips For Spotting SEO Charlatans

I have written numerous times on the many myths that abound in SEO. But it seems that no matter how many times I try to bust these myths wide open, they still persist. Perhaps I am fighting an uphill battle here because the world of SEO unfortunately has its fair share of charlatans who want […]

SEO

‘Tis The Season For Link Baiting

Ah, the holidays! It’s that time of year — for egg nog, carolers, sleigh rides, Yuletide cheer, roasting chestnuts, and… link bait! Yes, you heard right. The holidays are a great time to launch link bait campaigns, because you can piggy-back on the popularity of the holiday and of peoples’ enthusiasm for it. That doesn’t […]

Link building

The Secret Life Of The Black Hat SEO

The black hat SEO flies under the radar. He doesn’t want to attract too much attention — he knows attention brings bad things. Essentially he lives in the shadows. He doesn’t speak at conferences. He doesn’t publish articles. He hangs out with other black hats at conferences and road trips. In my opinion, an affiliate-oriented […]

SEO

25 Super Common SEO Mistakes

No, these aren’t “myths” disguised as “common mistakes.” I’ve already beaten the SEO myths theme to death with my previous three articles. What follows are innocent mistakes that many SEOs make. Some of these things catch even the best of us… 1.  Google AdWords Keyword Tool Set To Broad Match The Google AdWords Keyword Tool […]

SEO

Google Power User Tips: SERP URL Parameters

In Part 1, we looked at query operators for refining our searches. Now for Part 2, let’s look at parameters that we can add/modify in the URL of the the Google SERP (search engine results page.) The operators listed in Part 1 should suffice for most searches. Yet, certain types of searches are most efficiently […]

Link building

SEO Checklist Part 2: Best Practices

Continued from Part 1: 29 Worst Practices & Most Common SEO Failures. Best Practices Implementing the 14 best practices below (or at least some of them) and avoiding the worst practices should offer you a straightforward approach to better visibility in search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Best Practice Doing now Will do soon […]

SEO

29 Worst Practices & Most Common Failures: SEO Checklist Part I

Many consider search engine optimization as a sort of black box. But once the essential features of a search engine optimal website are laid out in a concise list, SEO is not nearly as mystifying. That’s where these checklists come in. They are designed for web marketers and web developers so that they can easily […]

Link building

36 More SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To

The overwhelming response to my last article, 36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To, it prompted a followup feature, SEO Myths Reloaded: Clarifcations, Consensus And Controversy. In the process, I ended up with a significant number of additional myths: 36 to be exact. That brings us to a grand total of 72 SEO […]

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